BART Gets $750K Grant With ICE Cooperation Strings Attached

(BAY AREA (SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA)) A $750,000 federal BART grant has drawn fire in the Bay Area after local reporting revealed it came with a condition requiring cooperation with U.S. immigration authorities, including “information sharing and collaboration” with Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers. The stipulation, attached to funding for Bay Area Rapid Transit, has alarmed local officials and advocacy groups who argue that tying transit money to ICE cooperation could chill ridership and erode trust among immigrant communities that rely on public transport.

The condition was described in coverage that cited the grant language and the response from regional planning circles, including references by the Oaklandside and the Association of Bay Area Governments. According to those accounts, the clause requires grant recipients to engage in “information sharing and collaboration” with ICE officers as a condition of receiving the funds. The BART grant amount was $750,000, and the ICE cooperation requirement emerged as a focal point in the local debate once the terms became public.

The controversy centers on whether a local transit agency should be required to work with federal immigration enforcement as a price for accepting a relatively small sum in federal support. Critics say the condition runs counter to the Bay Area’s long-standing stance on limiting local entanglement with federal immigration enforcement, and they warn it could expose riders or employees to immigration screening through back-end data requests. Supporters of stricter enforcement often argue that federal funds come with national priorities attached, but that view has faced stiff resistance in sanctuary jurisdictions. Here, the requirement for “information sharing and collaboration” with ICE has become shorthand for a policy choice many local leaders say they did not make and do not want to make through a grant application.

The reporting noted that the clause was flagged as a “string attached” to the funding, with Oaklandside coverage and references by the Association of Bay Area Governments underscoring how unusual and contentious the condition was for a regional transit system. The ICE cooperation mandate, as described, would condition receipt of the $750,000 on a commitment to coordinate with federal immigration officials and to share certain information upon request. The prospect of such coordination has triggered questions about what data might be shared, how rider privacy would be handled, and whether local staff could be drawn into immigration enforcement activity on transit property.

There is no evidence in the available reporting that BART has accepted or spent the grant money, and there were no public statements from BART leadership committing to comply with the ICE cooperation requirement. As of November 5, 2025, the issue remains contested in the region, with community groups and local officials expressing concern about the implications for immigrant riders and the broader community. The absence of an official BART position has left riders and employees watching to see whether the agency will embrace the money, reject it, or seek changes to the terms.

The “information sharing and collaboration” language has particular weight in the Bay Area, where local governments have often sought to draw firm lines between city services and federal immigration enforcement. In practice, according to the reporting, this type of ICE cooperation clause typically means local agencies must provide information or access to federal officers, which can include sharing data on riders and employees or details about incidents occurring on transit property. Those specifics are exactly what advocacy groups worry about: a data request for a transit incident could become a pathway to identify a person’s immigration status, or workplace information could put frontline staff under unwanted scrutiny.

The $750,000 sum is modest within the scale of BART’s budget, but the principle behind the condition has broad consequences. Local officials have warned that attaching ICE cooperation to transportation money risks discouraging riders from reporting crime, seeking help from station agents, or participating in everyday transit life if they fear their information could land with immigration authorities. Those who oppose the clause say that even the perception of data sharing with ICE can be enough to keep some riders away, undermining safety, ridership goals, and equitable access to transit.

The Association of Bay Area Governments’ reference to the issue signaled that the concern was not limited to one newsroom or one advocacy group but had entered the regional policy conversation. In that conversation, the specifics of the requirement — namely, “information sharing and collaboration” with ICE officers — have become a litmus test for whether local transit money can be used to pressure agencies into federal enforcement roles. Oaklandside’s reporting amplified the point, describing the ICE cooperation clause as a condition that many see as out of step with the Bay Area’s approach to immigrant inclusion and rider privacy.

At stake is not only the $750,000 but also the precedent it could set for future grants that transit agencies across the region might seek. If the ICE cooperation language becomes standard, local agencies could face a recurring choice between declining federal funds or accepting terms that require data access for immigration enforcement. The cumulative effect could be significant, particularly for services in immigrant-heavy corridors where riders often choose transit precisely because it feels separate from law enforcement.

The dispute also has a practical dimension: transit systems depend on public trust to function. Riders report lost items, suspicious activity, and safety hazards because they expect their information to be used for transit purposes, not immigration enforcement. Frontline workers, including station agents and cleaners, expect their personnel data to be protected by their employer. A grant condition that requires “information sharing and collaboration” with ICE puts a new lens on those expectations, leaving open questions about what categories of information could be requested, who would decide whether to comply, and how BART would notify the public if such sharing occurred.

For now, the lack of a public statement from BART leaders has left space for speculation, which community groups say is itself harmful. Without clarity, concerns about ICE cooperation spread by word of mouth, especially among riders who already feel vulnerable. Regional planners who referenced the clause have described it as a “string attached,” which underscores how the funding condition, rather than the dollar amount, sits at the center of the debate. The core facts remain straightforward: a BART grant worth $750,000 was linked to “information sharing and collaboration” with ICE officers, and the community is weighing whether that trade-off aligns with local values and rider safety.

The discussion fits into a broader national tug-of-war over the role of local agencies in federal immigration enforcement. In many places, federal grants have been used to encourage or require cooperation with immigration authorities, prompting lawsuits, policy pushback, and heated public meetings. The Bay Area has often been at the forefront of those fights, and the BART grant has quickly become the latest example of how a line item in a federal award can carry consequences well beyond the balance sheet. The details matter here because the everyday actions on a transit system — tapping a fare gate, requesting help from a station agent, filing an incident report — generate data that can reveal who someone is and where they were, and those traces can become part of an immigration case if shared.

Advocacy groups argue that transparency is essential. If BART decides to accept the money, they say, the agency should spell out what “information sharing and collaboration” entails, define limits for any ICE cooperation, and disclose requests for rider or employee data. Others say the cleanest route is to decline funds with enforcement strings and seek alternative financing that does not raise fears of immigration exposure. The agency’s options, as described in local coverage, range from rejecting the grant outright to negotiating terms, but the reporting did not include any indication that a final decision had been made.

ICE, for its part, maintains that it enforces federal law and relies on partnerships with local entities for public safety. The agency’s public materials describe how it works with other organizations and what information it seeks to carry out its mission; more about those activities is available on the official website of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Those general descriptions do not answer the Bay Area’s immediate question about the BART grant, however, which is whether the transit agency will bind itself to ICE cooperation as the price of $750,000 in federal support.

As the debate continues, the phrase at the center of the dispute — “information sharing and collaboration” — is doing much of the work. Words in a grant condition can carry considerable weight, and in this case they have set off a region-wide conversation about privacy, public safety, and who gets to ride the train without fear. Until BART leaders state plainly whether they will accept the money and under what terms, riders and workers will be left in limbo, weighing the value of a BART grant against the cost of ICE cooperation in their daily lives.