Pima County Board of Supervisors

In a move that comes as no surprise to community activists who have followed the issue closely, US Border Patrol and FEMA have denied Pima County's request to repurpose a portion of the controversial Operation Stonegarden (OPSG) grant for humanitarian expenses. This information is becoming public only today (Dec. 26), although the Arizona Department of Homeland Security (AZDoHS) received the decision in a letter dated November 14. Pima County Sheriff Mark Napier received a copy of that letter but chose not to inform county administration at the time.

As I reported last year, Pima County refused the OPSG grant in 2018 following intensive lobbying by progressive community groups, who expressed concern about the chilling impact on immigrant communities. As Supervisor Sharon Bronson, a Democrat who voted to deny the 2018 grant, said at the time:

The Stonegarden grant is managed by the U.S. Border Patrol. One of Stonegarden’s stated goals is to "enforce immigration laws." This runs counter to Pima County Sheriff Mark Napier's statement that his department should not be a proactive arm of immigration enforcement. I agree with our sheriff's statement, and that's why our deputies should not participate in a federal program whose stated goal is to proactively engage them in immigration enforcement.

All that changed in 2019, as I reported last week, when County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry discovered new guidance from the US Congress and from FEMA, contained in FEMA Grant Programs Directorate IB 436, Guidance for Use of Homeland Security Grant Program Funds, including Operation Stonegarden, for Unaccompanied Children and Families on the Southwest border. The guidance allows portions of OPSG and other grants to be used for humanitarian expenses incurred by grant recipients on behalf of immigrant and refugee children and their families.

On the basis that Pima County was already incurring significant expenses housing and caring for asylum-seeking refugees who were being dumped in Tucson by ICE, Huckelberry proposed modifying the county's grant application to include $200,000 in humanitarian expense, and the Board of Supervisors voted to accept the grant provided that all the agencies involved would sign off on the modification. This meant approval from AZDoHS, Tucson Sector Border Patrol, US Border Patrol, and FEMA.

This seemed extremely unlikely. I was so skeptical that I phoned the responsible FEMA office in Washington to ask about the process. They informed me that yes, the provision was intended to be used, but that no grant recipient had ever asked for it. They couldn't guarantee that any of the agencies had procedures for dealing with such requests, and they certainly couldn't guarantee how Border Patrol would respond.

Now it remains to be seen what the Board will do next. In his Dec. 26 memo, Status of Operation Stonegarden Humanitarian Aid Request by the Board of Supervisors, Huckelberry criticizes AZDoHS and Napier for not keeping him informed, and he gives a detailed analysis of why he thinks FEMA's and Border Patrol's denial is flawed. But other than asking about the possibility of appealing the decision (almost certainly impossible), he doesn't say what this means going forward.

When the Board passed the conditional acceptance, last May, I urged them to state very explicitly what would happen if the federal bureaucracy denied the humanitarian request. They declined. In my view, it ought to mean that the entire grant is rejected because the condition of acceptance wasn't met.

We'll have to see whether they try to find another way to accept the 2019 grant or whether they let it lie. The last part of Huckelberry's memo, which is about pursuing recovery of indirect costs associated with accepting the grant, seems to indicate that he'll be looking to find a way to accept it. Stay tuned.

What political hay the involved parties are going to make of this fiasco is anybody’s guess. It’s easy to read Huckelberry’s memo as an attempt to blame everyone except himself, but I think it’s more than that. He’s laying the groundwork for some future initiative, yet to be named.

As for Napier, he’s up for re-election next year and will face significant opposition. OPSG may not be on many voters’ radar, but Napier’s long-term pattern of obfuscation and concealment should be cause for concern.

As for me, I'm running for Pima County Supervisor in 2020 to replace one of the Republican incumbents who voted to accept the grant. For more about my campaign, see my November diary, Running for Office in a Red District, Purple State.

Arizona is widely considered to be an important swing state in 2020. Strong downballot campaigns like mine can help energize voters to turn out.

Please consider donating to my campaign via ActBlue.

Have a look at my website and my Facebook page for more info. You can also follow my campaign on Twitter.