Hochul Calls $87M Funding Gap ‘Defunding The Police’

NEW YORK CITY — President Donald Trump promised in October to reverse $187 million in homeland-security cuts to New York. Ten days before the 25th anniversary of Sept. 11, Gov. Kathy Hochul and Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced the federal government still has not restored $87 million.

The funding pays for the teams New Yorkers may need when a bomb threat shuts down a school, a suspicious package closes a transit hub or a cyberattack hits critical systems.

“You can't just reopen those schools right away,” Terence O'Leary, the state's homeland-security commissioner, said.

“You need local resources that are going to go in and make sure that that building is actually safe.”

The Urban Area Security Initiative, a federal program that funds counterterrorism planning and response in high-risk metropolitan areas, dropped 40.9 percent.

New York City would lose about $55.6 million, O'Leary said.

The cuts would also hit FDNY's Incident Management, Hazmat, Search and Rescue and Special Operations teams.

The grants fund K-9 units and the New York State Intelligence Center, while the state's Joint Security Operations Center tracks cyberattacks and shares threat information with local governments.

Mamdani said the funding also keeps 12 bomb squads operating statewide and equips FDNY for radiological emergencies.

“We are talking about the money needed to ensure that in the event of a catastrophic attack, the FDNY can communicate internally and respond effectively,” Mamdani said.

Last September, FEMA cut New York's Homeland Security Grant Program funding by 79 percent, or more than $100 million.

The agency redirected money from states that refused to use local law-enforcement resources for federal immigration enforcement, according to New York Attorney General Letitia James' office.

New York and 11 other states sued DHS, arguing the administration could not condition counterterrorism and emergency-preparedness grants on immigration enforcement.

In December, a federal judge ordered DHS to restore the grant awards to the amounts it had previously committed to provide.

DHS appealed, then dropped the appeal in May, ending the case and preserving the restored funding.

Hochul said the federal government still has not released $87 million.

“Donald Trump is defunding the police,” she said.

On Tuesday, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said ICE had arrested more than 2,100 people across New York during the previous 30 days in Operation Rotten Apple.

“Operation Rotten Apple was initiated because New York City has a liberal, socialist mayor who, instead of working with law enforcement, tried to cut NYPD's budget by $22 million and refused to cooperate with federal law enforcement,” Mullin said. “You also have a governor who refuses to work with us.”

The state has not announced further legal action.

DHS rejected Hochul's characterization of the funding dispute.

A department spokesperson said New York was “manufacturing a funding crisis” while holding more than $300 million in previously awarded federal homeland-security money that it has not spent.

The department questioned why the City and state were seeking additional funds.