The feds owe Pima County about $10 million for their work assisting people seeking asylum. But, citing their unwillingness to use taxpayer dollars to “facilitate illegal immigration,” they’re threatening not to pay up.
Last week the Federal Emergency Management Administration sent Pima County a letter saying they would withhold money the agency had previously promised the county.
On March 11, the federal agency, part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, put Pima County on notice due to “significant concerns” that organizations contracting with the county have been “engaged in or facilitating illegal activities” around immigration.
County officials say they have been long and transparently working with the federal government to assist legal asylum-seekers.
According to the letter, FEMA “is concerned that entities receiving payment under this program may be guilty of encouraging or inducing an alien to come to, enter, or reside in the United States in violation of law.”
Since 2019, the county has received more than $117 million in federal funds to support people seeking asylum. Most of that money came from the Emergency Food and Shelter Program managed by FEMA. The state of Arizona provides additional funding.
This January, after the Trump administration effectively shut down the asylum program, the county closed its asylum-seeker welcome centers. According to a Jan. 23 memo from County Administrator Jan Lesher about the closure, the county had sheltered more than 518,000 people since 2019.
The overwhelming majority of people seeking asylum who received services in Pima County moved on to other locations throughout the country.
The county supervisors discussed the FEMA letter and their response to it in executive session and did not comment on it publicly during their Tuesday, March 18 meeting.
Lesher called the county’s efforts to respond to and temporarily assist asylum-seekers “one of the most significant humanitarian aid programs undertaken by Pima County and its regional partners in the County’s history.”
The letter from FEMA cites about $52.5 million of federal funding already distributed or destined to the county between March 2023 and September 2026. The money went to providing temporary shelter, a few meals and some basic necessities to legally-processed people seeking asylum.
But now that the program has been shut down, the county is only waiting for federal reimbursement of about $10 million, according to Deputy County Administrator Steve Holmes. The county has already submitted a reimbursement request for $5.7 million, Holmes said.
As FEMA conducts “additional monitoring and review” of the county’s awards, those payments to the county will be withheld, according to the agency’s letter.
The agency has also requested the county to provide, within 30 days, “all documents regarding the aliens with whom your organization and your subrecipients and contracts interacted.” The letter asks the county to provide all the individuals’ names and contact information, as well as “a detailed and descriptive list of specific services provided, and proof of provision of these services.”
Holmes said the county has always provided the names and alien registration numbers of all the people who received services through the program.
Moreover, according to the letter, “FEMA will be imposing an additional special condition” requiring county officials and any contractor that received funding “to sign an affidavit attesting that you and they have not participated in, and have no knowledge or suspicion that anyone in your or their organizations participated in, any crime.”
The letter adds: “Additional details regarding this new requirement will be forthcoming shortly.”
Holmes added that other border counties that had been receiving funds, in Texas and California, had received the same “boilerplate letter” from FEMA.
A FEMA spokesperson told Arizona Luminaria via email that DHS Secretary Kristi Noem “froze grant funding to NGOs where the grant touches immigration.”
“The Biden administration spent hundreds of millions of dollars resettling illegal aliens in our country on American taxpayers dime. We will not give taxpayer dollars to NGOs who facilitate illegal immigration,” according to the FEMA spokesperson.
It was long established U.S. law that people seeking asylum have the legal right to request protection no matter how they crossed the border. That changed last summer when the Biden administration implemented new rules making it significantly harder for asylum-seekers to file claims.
Lesher told Arizona Luminaria that if the federal money is not forthcoming, “we will have to adjust to funds from our general fund.”
“We fulfilled every aspect of the contract and we welcome a review,” Lesher said. “I remain proud of the program.”
The letter comes at a time when the county is trying to understand what other federal grants will be available to the county as they continue to prepare for next fiscal year’s budget.
Community concerns
During the call to audience session at the meeting, Laurie Moore stepped up to the microphone dressed in a striped prison shirt. She thumped down a fake moneybag and then praised Supervisor Steve Christy who was against accepting federal funds dedicated to receiving people seeking asylum.
Christy has also blamed other supervisors for incentivizing asylum-seekers to come to Pima County.
Moore also suggested U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi should interview local leaders who have pushed for sanctuary city policies. Neither Tucson nor Pima County is a sanctuary city.
Multiple other community members brought up FEMA’s letter, asking questions about how much money the county has disbursed to organizations to assist with resource. County officials have provided regular updates about the federal money spent on the asylum program. Pima County has not spent county taxpayers’ money on the program, Lesher has repeatedly said.
“No other border community in the country achieved what Pima County and Tucson has over the past six years of this stressful and persistent humanitarian crisis,” Lesher wrote in a Jan. 23 memo. “The work of many has helped the people of Pima County come together in a time of crisis to prevent suffering while also protecting our community.”
‘All about the love’
Pima County Supervisor Adelita Grijalva, of District 5, began the meeting expressing gratitude to the community after the death last week of her father, Rep. Raúl Grijalva.
“It’s really been all about the love,” Adelita Grijalva said. “We’re really honored that so many people have reached out to just say how much he’s meant to them personally.” She then led the meeting in a brief moment of silence.
The supervisors also declared March 31, 2025 Transgender Day of Visibility in Pima County. They didn’t explicitly reference attacks on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion policies, or an executive order that rescinded policies providing resources to transgender people.
“As communities get pushed into the shadows, that does none of us any good. It only does harm, generational levels of harm,” said Supervisor Jen Allen, of District 3, before reading the proclamation at the beginning of the meeting, said “This proclamation is an effort to say to the transgender community that we see you, in all your dignity and humanity, you are welcome here in Pima County, you have a seat at the table and that you are loved.”
Republish our articles for free, online or in print.
