Fresno Faces Federal Showdown Over Rape Kit Funding

Fresno City Attorney Andrew Janz said his office is prepared to sue the Trump administration after the Department of Justice threatened to withhold a $2 million grant used to process sexual assault evidence kits. The DOJ sent Fresno a notice in June stating the city must certify it will cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement or risk losing the funding. Janz responded that the city will not sign the certification, a position he described as likely the final step before litigation.

The grant is part of the $350 million Sexual Assault Kit Initiative, a federal program created to clear backlogs of untested rape kits and fund prosecutions. Fresno is currently using the grant to test 400 kits. The city previously used similar funding to test more than 2,500 backlogged kits, which resulted in 33 new cases and four rape convictions, according to the material.

Janz, a career prosecutor, said the threat puts the city in a bind: California state law prohibits sharing the type of information the DOJ is demanding, and the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld that law as constitutional. “This is a bad time for them to hold up testing for victims of sexual assault,” Janz said. “This is a no-brainer. Let’s help these victims get justice.”

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The DOJ in October identified Fresno among 12 states, 18 cities, and three counties it said “materially impede enforcement of federal immigration statutes.” Those jurisdictions generally refuse to share information with ICE, hold people for ICE, or allow agents into their jails. The administration is now tying federal grants for public safety programs — including rape kit testing, bulletproof vests, and ambulances — to ICE cooperation agreements.

Other cities face similar threats. Santa Cruz stands to lose grants for bulletproof vests; Beaverton, Oregon, could lose ambulance funding; Portland has $8.6 million in active DOJ grants at risk, including $2.5 million for cold cases and sexual assault kits. Los Angeles County said it is forgoing many federal grant opportunities entirely; Miami signed the ICE agreement and is facing resident backlash; Seattle and San Diego have filed lawsuits.

A California federal judge dealt a blow to the administration July 9, ruling the federal government could not withhold public safety grants to Oregon and California cities. Judge William Orrick wrote that the strings attached to the grants “have nothing to do with or contradict the Congressional purpose” and that the public has a legitimate interest in “seeing its communities receive funding for critical infrastructure and public safety initiatives — funding that is paid for by their federal tax dollars.” The same judge ruled against similar withholding attempts in Trump’s first term and again last year in cases involving Boston, Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles, and 30 other cities.

The DOJ declined to answer questions about Fresno’s grant. Spokesperson Wyn Hornbuckle wrote that “applicants are required to submit a certification that they will comply with federal law.”

Advocates for sexual assault victims called the funding threats counterproductive. Ilse Knecht, policy director at the Joyful Heart Foundation, said denying rape kit funding contradicts the administration’s stated goal of removing dangerous offenders from the streets. “Rapists are often serial rapists,” Knecht said. “They’re not specialists, and they don’t stop until they’re stopped. Red state or blue state, these guys move around.” Studies from West Virginia and Ohio show that testing rape kits prevents other crimes and can save communities millions of dollars, according to the material.

Fresno’s backlog work led to concrete results. Last week, Dallas police announced the arrest of Jarvis Pierce, 35, using DNA testing from the federal program for a cold case rape more than 10 years old. Portland cleared the state’s backlog of thousands of untested kits in 2018 with federal funding, but by 2024 the backlog had returned — police were waiting eight months for kits to be tested and have hundreds in line.

The Breakdown

• The DOJ threatened to withhold a $2 million grant Fresno uses to test 400 sexual assault kits unless the city certifies it will cooperate with ICE.
• Janz responded the city will not sign the certification — California state law prohibits the information-sharing the DOJ is demanding, and the 9th Circuit has upheld that law.
• The administration identified Fresno in October as a “sanctuary jurisdiction” that “materially impedes” federal immigration enforcement by refusing to share information with ICE, hold people for ICE, or allow agents into jails.
• A federal judge ruled July 9 that the government cannot withhold public safety grants over ICE cooperation, writing the grant conditions contradict Congressional purpose. The same judge blocked similar withholding in Trump’s first term and again last year.
• More than 21 jurisdictions that received rape kit grants are now classified as sanctuary jurisdictions and face the same threat.

What This Means for You

This is a direct consequence of the executive policies set by the administration voters elected in 2024. The $2 million at risk funded 33 prosecutions and four rape convictions in Fresno from prior grants — those cases would not have been built without the federal money. If the DOJ follows through and Fresno loses the grant, 400 kits now in line for testing could remain untested, meaning DNA evidence that could identify serial offenders, prevent future assaults, or bring closure to victims sits unused. The tension is this: the administration you voted for is using grant eligibility as leverage for ICE cooperation, but a federal judge has now ruled twice that doing so exceeds the administration’s authority and contradicts what Congress funded the grants to accomplish. Whether the withholding stands depends on whether this administration’s Justice Department continues to assert the authority the courts have said it does not have, or whether Janz and the cities already suing succeed in blocking it again.

What You Can Do

Janz has stated his office is prepared to file suit, joining Seattle, San Diego, and the cities that won the July 9 ruling. No public hearing or comment period is stated in the material — this is heading to federal court. If you want to weigh in on whether Fresno should fight the withholding or sign the ICE certification, contact the City Attorney’s office or the Fresno City Council (no direct contact method stated in the material).

What to Watch

The July 9 ruling is not the final word — the DOJ can appeal. Even if Fresno wins in court, the time spent litigating is time the 400 kits sit untested and cases go unbuilt. The real question is whether this administration will keep asserting an authority two judges have now said it does not have, and whether cities will keep paying to fight the same battle in court every time the policy returns. There is also this: the material states the grant program was “imperfect” even before the withholding threat — a 2024 USA TODAY investigation found departments had “haphazard protocols” and were “slow to build cases” for rape victims. Holding up an already-struggling program over an unrelated policy dispute means the victims waiting for justice wait longer, and the offenders the kits could identify stay unidentified longer. The cost of that delay — in assaults that could have been prevented, cases that could have been closed — is not a number that will appear in any budget hearing, but it is a real cost, and it falls on the people this grant was created to help.