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In a Tuesday email to the city of Portland’s leaders, the city’s Office of Government Relations offered a warning that President Trump’s recent slew of executive orders—including pausing various federal grants and a crackdown on deporting undocumented immigrants—has the potential to greatly affect the city’s federal funding, though exactly how is “still very unclear.”
The email, sent from Jack Arriaga, the city’s federal relations manager, asked for “patience and understanding as we work to provide reliable, actionable information and guidance” about Trump’s executive orders.
Among the orders that “pose the greatest potential risks to the city’s various sources of federal funding,” Arriaga wrote, are Trump’s “Unleashing American Energy” order, which puts an indefinite pause on funds made possible by the former President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, and Trump’s “Protecting the American People Against Invasion” order, which “threatens to withhold federal funds from sanctuary jurisdictions and directs the potential prosecution of state and local officials who do not comply with federal immigrant enforcement directives,” Arriaga wrote.
(Earlier this week, Mayor Keith Wilson released a statement affirming the city’s status as a sanctuary city in response to Trump’s executive order ending birthright citizenship for children of undocumented citizens. “News of mass deportation raids can be frightening, but we are a community that supports each other,” Wilson wrote. “Portland is rich in diversity, a value that includes immigrants and refugees who have only just arrived. We stand together in solidarity with our immigrant families.”)
A third directive from the Trump administration, in which the White House Office of Management and Budget told all federal agencies to pause all federal funding until agencies audit their funding and weed out whatever does not comply with Trump’s recent executive orders, the city’s Government Relations Team warned could affect a variety of city funding streams. That order, set to go into effect at 5 p.m, could potentially affect grants that have already been awarded to the city of Portland, Arriaga wrote.
(By mid-afternoon, a federal judge temporarily blocked the shutoff of federal grant spending, though Trump’s other executive orders remain in effect.)
“As written, this will affect all federal grant funding that is not part of a legally required award closeout or specifically exempted by the OMB,” Arriaga wrote—adding that the legality of that directive is being actively questioned by top Democratic lawmakers.
The city’s Grants Management Office, Arriaga said, would be looking at all of the city’s federal grants in the coming days and warned that “grants managers and program staff may receive requests for additional information on specific grants” soon.
The City Attorney’s Office, Arriaga wrote, is working to figure out how the executive orders will affect the city’s federal funding streams.
And it’s also working to evaluate what the potential consequences are for cities and city officials that don’t cooperate with Trump’s immigration enforcement commands.
“The implications for the City of these Executive Orders are still very unclear,” Arriaga warned, “and any potential legal or political strategies to respond will take time to fully develop.”