With White House advisor, Pima County officials tout impact of federal spending

Over the last three-and-a-half years, Pima County has used millions in federal funds to develop “sustainable, tangible” programs to solve critical issues, said Pima County Chair Adelita Grijlava on Friday.

During a meeting with Tom Perez, a senior advisor to President Joe Biden and director of the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs, county officials outlined how they spent millions in federal funding created by Congress through major legislation—including the American Rescue Plan Act, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, and the Inflation Reduction Act.

Perez praised the county for how officials have used millions in funding to solve problems. He also rejected claims FEMA spent disaster money on sheltering immigrants, and called on Congress to fix the nation’s immigration system, which he called a “28-year-old jalopy.” 

At the historic Pima County Courthouse, officials laid out their efforts, including $82.3 million for emergency rental assistance to prevent evictions, covering rental assistance and a shelter for families; $30.3 million to build a 135-mile fiber optic “ring” around the county to expand internet access; $16 million for public health needs; and nearly $40 million for transportation infrastructure, including $20 million to upgrade Valencia Road. 

The county has also spent $117.7 million since 2019 to shelter more than 500,000 asylum seekers—including families with children—who were released by U.S. Customs and Border Protection in Pima County, as well as Santa Cruz and Cochise counties. 

Pima County Administrator Jan Lesher told Perez the county is roughly the size of New Jersey, and includes the U.S.-Mexico border. Lesher noted if the unincorporated portion of Pima County become a single jurisdiction, it would be the fourth largest city in Arizona. 

Perez’s visit is one of several high-profile officials to come to Tucson while Vice President Kamala Harris, now running for president herself, attempts to hold the state against ex-president and GOP candidate Donald Trump. Under the Obama administration, Perez served first as an assistant attorney general and later as the Labor Department secretary until 2017. 

Dr. Francisco Garcia, deputy county administrator and chief medical officer, told Perez it was “really important for us to be able to tell the story of how we use federal resources in innovative ways to serve our community.” 

Garcia said nearly $83 million in federal funds through the American Rescue Plan and the federal Emergency Rental Assistance Program helped “beef up” eviction prevention, allowing the county to “put together a comprehensive program.” 

This includes emergency eviction legal services to help people stay in their homes and provide legal support and assistance, Garcia said. The effort has served 2,350 households, and legal aids won 50 percent of cases. The county has also used federal funds to help another 2,100 households with rental assistance, while providing “wraparound services like job assistance.” 

Garcia said the program works to keep those recently evicted from being on the street. “That’s especially important for families. That’s especially important for vulnerable individuals,” he said. Federal funds also helped the county—in a partnership with the city of Tucson—to establish a shelter on Craycroft Road that has served 410 households. Garcia said that 84 percent of the people who go through the county’s programs land in permanent housing, and have been there for six months or more.

“That’s an incredible success rate, and it’s because we’re touching people just as they’re getting evicted, rather than when they become chronically homeless,” Garcia said. 

He added the county has also received $60 million from the CDC for public health infrastructure, which has helped the county create 44 new positions to manage public health, address issues of “climate and environmental justice,” work better with the tribal nations, and “really step up our game” to look for diseases or environmental problems. The funding has established cooling centers in “rural and vulnerable areas,” like the one deployed to Ajo over the summer, as well as efforts to prevent injury and violence. 

“These are the kinds of things that are not terribly sexy, but there are really fundamental kinds of infrastructure that are necessary,” Garcia said.

He also outlined how the county will use a $30.3 million grant from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration—part of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law—to build a 135-mile fiber-optic network. Pima County officials announced the effort last year. Another $12.5 million — paid for by the county, city of Tucson, Marana, and Oro Valley as a required match under the grant terms — will help fund the ring circling Tucson. 

Once complete, Internet carriers will be able to lease access to the network, and connect users within 25 miles of the ring.

“This is a once in a lifetime thing, which is really going to impact us for years and years,” said Michelle Simon, deputy director of the Pima County Public Library last year. Almost one in ten households in Pima County currently have no broadband or Internet access at all, and many more have poor connection speed, according to data from the Federal Communications Commission.

The county will also spend federal funds on pollution reduction, improvements to storm drain system, backup generators for the wastewater treatment facility, and improvements to the Eric Marcus Municipal Airport in Ajo, Ariz.  

’28-year-old jalopy’ 

Perez said the use of federal spending to manage community issues has been “unprecedented in scope and scale.” 

Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, he said, “understood that moments of greatest crisis are also moments of greatest opportunity. The arc of history in the United States shows the times we’ve done the biggest things, they’ve actually been during the times of greatest crisis.” 

He compared the major pieces of legislation passed by the Biden administration to the New Deal and the Great Society, and said following the COVID-19 pandemic it was a “time to do big things” adding that the American Rescue Plan—a $1.9 trillion spending package passed in March 2021—was a “statement of trust” with local governments. 

Perez praised the county’s efforts to shelter asylum seekers, calling it a “smart use of funds.” 

Since 2019, Pima County has received $117.7 million to aid around 502,794 people using two shelters, some hotels, and churches. 

“I have always respected the humane way in which you have welcomed folks who are arriving in this country, and in so many, many cases, are escaping unspeakable situations at home,” Perez said, adding the world was in the throes of the “largest wave” of migration since WWII. He noted his experience in passing the last piece of bipartisan immigration legislation—1996’s Illegal Immigration Reform and Responsibility Act. 

“We’re driving a 28-year-old jalopy right now at a federal level, our immigration system is broken,” he said. Perez also reminded county officials of the recent fallout over a bipartisan effort to craft a new immigration and border bill that collapsed after Trump criticized it. “As you know that deal died because someone said you can’t give Joe Biden a victory.” 

In the wake of Hurricane Helene, Republicans seeking electoral leverage have attacked FEMA and the Biden administration, arguing the federal disaster response was hamstrung because of the Shelter and Services Program, which has reimbursed counties for the costs of sheltering and feeding asylum seekers for the last five years. 

Trump, who originally signed the program into law, claimed the Biden administration “stole the FEMA money just like they stole it from a bank.”

FEMA responded, writing in a post called “rumor response” the agency has enough money for emergency response and recovery. Further, the agency said funds for disaster response is funded through the Disaster Relief Fund, “which is a dedicated fund for disaster efforts. Disaster Relief Fund money has not been diverted to other, non-disaster related efforts.”

In 2023 and 2024, Congress earmarked millions for the Shelter and Services Program to help local governments, like Pima County, manage shelter operations for asylum seekers. As part of funding bills for the Department of Homeland Security, Congress included $360 million for the program in 2023 and increased funding to $650 million in 2024.

However, during the program’s creation in 2019, the Trump administration pulled $271 million from DHS programs, including $155 million from the disaster fund, to pay for immigration detention facilities and temporary hearing locations. In a notice to Congress, the Trump administration said the U.S. was facing “a security and humanitarian crisis on the Southern border” and pulled the funds during hurricane season, the Washington Post reported.

This included $38 million pulled from FEMA and sent to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in August.

‘We don’t have a dance partner’

“We need immigration reform, There’s no doubt about it,” Perez said. “We need we need aggressive enforcement at the border, and we need pathways to citizenship. That’s what immigration reform has always been. And what frustrates President Biden, Vice President Harris and me, to no end, is that we no longer we don’t have a dance partner on comprehensive reform.” 

Earlier this year, a bipartisan effort to deal with the border collapsed after Trump told Republicans to oppose it so immigration would continue to be an issue in the November election. 

For months, U.S. Krysten Sinema of Arizona worked with Sen. James Lankford, a Republican from Oklahoma, and Sen. Chris Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut, to negotiate a new immigration bill with the White House. However, the 400-page bill never made it to the Senate floor after House Speaker Mike Johnson declared it “dead on arrival.”

Perez said the funding for disaster efforts and SSP are separate and mandated by Congress. Perez added while the Biden administration pushed for more funding for FEMA, Congress did not including the extra spending in a continuing resolution passed last week, instead of a larger federal spending bill. 

“Again, we didn’t have a dance partner, we couldn’t get that into the final continuing resolution,” he said. “At the same time, we have the resources to deal with these immediate needs. The continuing resolution goes until December 20. I am hopeful that we will come together in a bipartisan fashion to address these concerns.” 

He added the Biden administration’s requested budget had funding for FEMA’s disaster response, but Congress “dramatically cut that.” 

“That’s that the cynicism of certain people in Congress,” he said. “The funding request from the administration was literally cut in half.” 

“We know that Pima county needs more money. We know that El Paso and other border communities need the money to do the effective processing, and when they’re unable to do it that, it hurts everybody, and so it’s a real short sighted approach.

He noted without Congress, the Biden administration used administrative action to reduce encounters on the border, driving them to their lowest levels since 2019. 

“We’ve done it, but it would be far better if we had comprehensive immigration reform, because we can’t fix a broken immigration system one executive action at a time,” Perez said. However, he said in the meantime, the Biden administration announced a new program allowing U.S. citizens with noncitizen spouses and children to seek legal residency for their family members. The program would allow noncitizen spouses and children to apply without leaving the country, if they’ve been in the country for 10 years. 

The program was immediately challenged by Republican governors who sought a friendly court in Texas to block the effort. 

Perez said the program gives people a chance to keep their family together. “That ought to be a no brainer,” he said. “But once again, in the politically toxic environment of immigration, it’s anything but.” 

He said Homeland Security officials will continue to process applications as the case moves forward. “We are processing them. We can’t make final decisions because we have this court case. But that shouldn’t deter them from coming forward,” Perez said. 

Perez pushed for Congress to engage in new reform on immigration, and also said they should make permanent the child tax credit, which was temporarily expanded as part of the American Rescue Plan. The White House said the program included 60 million children and had “a dramatic impact on lowering child poverty” especially among Black, Hispanic, Asian and Native American children.