Updated at 2:25 p.m. on Friday, May 23, 2025
The City and County of Denver is joining dozens of local governments in suing President Donald Trump’s administration over threats to withhold federal funding for transportation and infrastructure projects.
The administration has threatened to cut grants to local governments if they do not conform to the president’s executive orders regarding diversity, equity and inclusion, immigration and religious liberty.
For Denver, the grants falling through would stymie multiple transportation and infrastructure projects throughout the city.
Denver’s transportation department currently has $300 million in federal grants. The Denver International Airport also received more than $300 million in Federal Aviation Administration grants from 2022 to 2024, and would be eligible for another $267 million from 2025 to 2027.
If the Trump administration enforces the order, the lawsuit fails and Denver maintains its welcoming attitude toward unauthorized immigrants and its emphasis on DEI, more than half a billion in federal funding could be lost.
“States and localities should not be concerned if they are complying with Federal law and using their grant funding to focus on creating safe and efficient commuter experiences for American families. What this administration won’t support is taxpayer dollars being used to push discriminatory, anti-American ideologies,” said the Department of Transportation in a statement.
The threats came in a late April letter from federal Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy.
He wrote that cities that implement or contract with companies that have DEI policies that the Trump administration considers discriminatory and unlawful will lose funding.
Cities must also comply with Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s attempts to use local governments to enforce immigration laws, the letter stated.
“DOT recipients are prohibited from engaging in discriminatory actions in their own policies, programs, and activities, including in administering contracts, and their employment Practices,” Duffy wrote.
Denver and dozens of other municipalities view this threat as federal and presidential overreach, illegal and unconstitutional.
The money promised is not given by the White House but by Congress, Mayor Mike Johnston’s spokesperson Jon Ewing told Denverite. So, Trump and Duffy are overstepping their authority, Ewing said. To be enforceable, the orders would need to be approved by Congress.
“The Trump Administration is willfully breaking the law and, in ignoring the separation of powers between Congress and the White House, violating the bedrock constitutional foundation on which our country was built,” Johnston said in a statement.
The Department of Transportation has not responded to Denverite’s immediate requests for comment.
The grants to Denver have not yet been killed.
While the Department of Transportation has not defunded Denver’s infrastructure projects yet, the city is preparing for that to happen – and suing to stop it.
The move comes as the city faces a $250 million budget hole in 2025 and 2026.
The Trump administration has already tried to cancel reimbursements for $24 million in Federal Emergency Management Agency funding for immigration aid that Denver has already completed.
Denver joined other cities in suing over that clawback last week.
