Washington — The Justice Department is preparing to solicit applications for up to $3.5 billion in grants to pay for mostly immigration-related law enforcement programs, equipment and personnel, multiple sources familiar with the plans told CBS News.

The grant solicitations, most of which are not yet public, will fund everything from the construction of immigration detention facilities and the purchase of police surveillance equipment to the hiring of law enforcement personnel. 

Some of the money is also expected to be used to allow the Justice Department to pay local prosecutors to serve as temporary special assistant U.S. attorneys to support the department's new National Fraud Enforcement Division, which is tasked with investigating fraud involving public benefits, the sources said. 

The $300 million solicitation to fund local prosecutors who will help investigate fraud committed by people living in the country illegally was posted on Tuesday evening, after CBS News sought comment about the new grants.

The flurry of anticipated new grants comes as victims services organizations, criminal justice research facilities and juvenile justice programs have been struggling to stay afloat, due to a combination of unprecedented delays and terminations to other DOJ grant programs — many of which are authorized and appropriated by Congress. 

The Justice Department is also simultaneously taking away millions of dollars from grants that fund everything from victims services and hate crime prevention to substance abuse programs, and transferring the money to fund other non-grant activities, sources with direct knowledge of the plans told CBS News.

"Terminations and delays in funding are literally killing programs," said Claire Selib, executive director of the National Organization for Victim Advocacy. The nonprofit is facing multiple funding problems after the Justice Department canceled one grant last year. Three others the group applied for have been stalled for six months.

"Programs are shutting down. They're scaling back. Staff are being laid off," Selib said.

A Justice Department official said the DOJ is working to ensure that "all taxpayer-funded grant money is appropriately supporting initiatives to Make America Safe Again, and all discretionary funds not aligned with this mission are subject to review and reallocation."

"The first step in this process was terminating grants that were not directly supporting law enforcement efforts to improve public safety. All grant money and programs are being utilized consistent with parameters set by Congress, and the Department will continue to review appeals and award funds to organizations aligned with Administration goals," the official added.

"We are already being dismantled"

The Justice Department's grant programs have been in disarray since President Trump took office.

On April 22, 2025, the DOJ terminated more than 350 grants awarded during President Joe Biden's tenure that funded everything from police departments and local prosecutors to groups that provide services to victims of crime.

The department gave the grantees 30 days to appeal. Wednesday marks the one-year anniversary since the cuts. Some groups are still waiting for a response to their appeal, while others only recently learned they were denied.

The funding uncertainty has only been made worse by delays in getting grant funds out the door. Many attribute the delays to a drastic decrease in DOJ staffing and an executive order requiring additional layers of review by political officials before grants can be solicited and awarded.

More than an entire fiscal year came and went without the Office of Justice Programs soliciting applications for many of its congressionally mandated funding opportunities.

For instance, the office did not start soliciting fiscal 2025 applications for its popular Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant, or JAG, which is used to help fund local police departments, until March 13, 2026.

The National Institute of Justice, which funds criminal justice research projects, has only solicited three grants since Mr. Trump took office.

Grants focused on assisting victims of human trafficking in fiscal year 2025 were only solicited in December and have yet to be awarded.

"They're neglecting their regular responsibilities," said Liz Ryan, who previously ran the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, a DOJ grant-making office that funds programs to improve the youth justice system.

Meanwhile, grantees that have applied for funds still don't know if they will be selected, complicating their budgets.

Bill McKinney runs the New Kensington Community Development Corporation in the opioid epidemic-plagued Philadelphia neighborhood of Kensington. He told CBS News that the Justice Department canceled the group's $1.5 million grant last year, and has yet to respond to two other grant applications the group submitted in August and October 2025.

"We are already at risk, and we are already being dismantled," he said.

The canceled grant funded its CURE Violence program, a public health-based antiviolence initiative that utilizes mediators with lived experience on the streets who work to deescalate violence.

A few weeks ago, the DOJ finally told the group its appeal was denied, and the program is expected to close by October.

"It is terrible, and it doesn't make any sense," McKinney said. 

The delays in funding also come at a time when there is less money available to distribute.

Although Congress has allotted increases of 95% to the DOJ's Community Oriented Policing Services, or COPS, grant office and 11% to the Office of Justice Programs, it cut funding elsewhere in the department. 

To cover shortfalls to immigration courts, prisons and litigating offices, earlier this year the DOJ approved a $75 million transfer out of its grant offices, and notified Congress in March it could transfer up to an additional $95.8 million more by year's end if necessary, sources familiar with the matter told CBS News.

To date, it has targeted $117 million it intends to transfer out of a wide variety of grants that assist the victims of trafficking, combat hate crimes, reduce backlogs for sexual assault kits of rape victims, support efforts to help missing and exploited children and fund drug addiction and mental health assistance programs, according to goverment documents reviewed by CBS News.

Those transfers are taking place even after Congress imposed new limits on how much grant money the DOJ could dip into for non-grant activities. Last year, the department used grant money to pay for things such as President Trump's crackdown on crime in Washington, D.C., according to an analysis from a soon-to-be-released report by the Council on Criminal Justice.

To address the funding gaps, the Justice Department is relying on several other grant resources — primarily a $3.5 billion pot of money from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act to reimburse states and law enforcement for immigration-related activities incurred between 2021 and 2028.

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act also allocated some funds for COPS and Byrne JAG grants, in addition to the regular fiscal year 2026 congressional appropriation. 

Those new resources for Byrne JAG and COPS grants, however, place some limits on how the funds can be used. The grants cannot be used to fund violence prevention and reduction programs and any local law enforcement agency who accepts the money must agree to cooperate with federal immigration authorities. 

Most of the relevant funding from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act is geared towards law enforcement agencies. As such, the vast majority of that money cannot be used to support many of the DOJ's other congressionally authorized grant programs — such as those for victims services.

"What concerns me is if they are trying to roll out more funding for law enforcement to investigate and prosecute, without rolling out the funding for the services needed by the survivors," said Jean Bruggeman, co-executive director at Freedom Network USA.