Trump Redirecting BSCA Grant Money Away From ‘Gun Violence’ NGOs to Fund Deportation of Illegals

The Trump administration has reoriented a grant initiative originally meant to fund community-based violence prevention, using it instead to bolster local law enforcement and the president’s immigration crackdown.

The initiative, which closed its latest round of grant applications in early November, had helped expand non-law enforcement public safety strategies nationwide and supported communities dealing with the surge in gun violence during the COVID-19 pandemic.

But nonprofits and community organizations can no longer qualify. According to a Justice Department presentation on the grant process, the administration is now prioritizing local governments and giving special preference to applicants that “directly support law enforcement,” including “immigration law enforcement operations.”

The grant initiative — the Community Based Violence Intervention and Prevention Initiative, known by the acronym CVIPI — began under the Biden administration. The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, the landmark gun safety law passed in 2022, provided $250 million in federal funding for the initiative, to be spent over five years. Since then, it has distributed nearly $200 million to nonprofits and local governments to invest in community-led safety efforts like street outreach, hospital-based interventions, and violence interrupters.

Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut, who was the lead Democratic negotiator on the law, warned that diverting the funds threatens progress in reducing violence in recent years. After spiking in 2020 and 2021, homicides have plummeted nationally. Last year, violent crime fell at a record pace, and the United States is on track to close out 2025 with its lowest homicide rate on record. “Lawmakers and law enforcement alike know that community-based organizations understand the root causes of violence in their neighborhoods better than anyone,” Murphy told The Trace. “Now, Trump is trying to undo all of that progress — and the result will be more lives needlessly lost to gun violence.”

Murphy accused the administration of subverting the will of Congress. “When we wrote the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, we made it abundantly clear that these funds were meant for the community-based organizations that have proven to be most effective in reducing violence in their communities,” Murphy said. “This attempt by Donald Trump to go around Congress and violate established law is not only outrageous. It’s dangerous.”

— Chip Brownlee in Trump Plans to Take Money From Violence Prevention to Fund His Immigration Crackdown