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Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler declared Wednesday that Portland would refuse to comply with President Donald Trump's demands to cooperate with the deportation of undocumented immigrants—even if Trump followed through on his threat to yank federal grant funding to the city.
"We will not be complicit in the deportation of our neighbors," Wheeler said.
The good news for Wheeler is the city's budget could likely survive this particular Trumpist assault on so-called "sanctuary cities" like Portland.
City Office of Management and Finance spokeswoman Jen Clodius tells WW that $49 million may be at risk in the event the federal government pulled its support for the city.
Sure, $49 million is not chump change—but it's only about 1.3 percent of the city's annual budget.
The official figure—$48,923,517.28 to be precise—includes state grants, because some of the state grants are backed by federal funds.
Related: Multnomah County repeats its refusal to hold immigrants for deportation.
Clodius notes that the $49 million figure, derived from the 2015-2016 fiscal year, was higher than it would have been in most previous years, because FEMA kicked in an extra $9 million after then-Mayor Charlie Hales declared a housing emergency.
Fun fact: If crowd estimates of 100,000 marchers are correct, the city could replace the federal money by getting each person at the Women's March on Portland to contribute $490.