The Department of Transportation has prepared a legal change that would bar states, cities, and towns from using federal transit money for programs providing free transportation to illegal immigrants, according to a draft proposal obtained by Politico.

The measure would cover every Federal Transit Administration program: buses, subways, light-rail systems, and ferries.

The draft language is pointed. It specifies that systems receiving federal funds must not use taxpayer dollars "to circumvent or break Federal immigration law." More specifically, it would block funding from going toward programs that transport "individuals unlawfully present in the United States for the purpose of avoiding detection, apprehension, or removal by Federal immigration authorities."

If adopted, the rule would hand Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy the authority to withhold funding from any recipient caught violating it, Newsmax reported.

Where This Fits

The proposal didn't materialize in a vacuum. It lands in the middle of a broader confrontation between the Trump administration and sanctuary jurisdictions that have spent years treating federal immigration enforcement as optional. In June, Duffy warned that jurisdictions refusing to cooperate with federal immigration enforcement could risk losing DOT funding. This draft gives that warning teeth.

Federal Transit Administration leader Marc Molinaro reportedly recommended the measure as part of a batch of proposals sent to the White House Office of Management and Budget. Molinaro is leaving his post in the administration, according to Politico, but the proposal he helped shape could outlast his tenure by years. It is being considered for inclusion in the surface transportation reauthorization bill Congress is expected to pass before the current transportation law expires on September 30.

That legislative vehicle matters. Tucking this language into a must-pass infrastructure bill would make it far harder for opponents to strip out. It would become part of the baseline, not a standalone fight.

The Problem It Addresses

During the Biden administration, cities rolled out free bus programs to help illegal immigrants access services after waves of migrants arrived in northern cities. Some of those arrivals were the direct result of actions by Republican governors. Texas Governor Greg Abbott bused migrants to New York, Chicago, and Washington, D.C. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis flew migrants to Martha's Vineyard. The point those governors made was straightforward: if you declare yourself a sanctuary, you should bear the consequences of that declaration.

What happened next revealed the deeper rot. Rather than rethink their sanctuary posture, Democrat-run cities scrambled to accommodate the arrivals with taxpayer-funded transportation programs. The question the DOT proposal now forces into the open is simple: should federal tax dollars subsidize those efforts?

One unnamed DOT employee told Politico the department is trying to solve "a nonexistent problem." That framing deserves scrutiny. The fact that enforcement details remain unclear and that it is not fully verified whether any city has used transit funding specifically to help illegal immigrants evade federal authorities does not mean the principle is wrong. Federal dollars carry federal obligations. If a city accepts transit funding, the expectation that it won't weaponize that funding against federal law enforcement is not radical. It's baseline governance.

The Legislative Backstory

Rep. Nick LaLota, a Republican from New York, previously introduced legislation aimed at preventing sanctuary cities from using federal funds for migrant transportation and related costs. That effort signaled where congressional appetite was heading. The DOT proposal takes the same principle and builds it into the executive branch's regulatory architecture, creating a two-track approach: legislative and administrative.

The broader package of transportation-related proposals being considered for the reauthorization bill hasn't been fully detailed, but the immigration provision alone signals a shift in how the administration views the federal funding relationship. For decades, transit dollars flowed to cities with minimal strings attached. The Trump administration is attaching strings. Specifically, the string that says you cannot use American taxpayers' money to help people who broke American law avoid the consequences of breaking it.

What Sanctuary Cities Actually Do

The sanctuary city model rests on a contradiction its defenders never resolve. These jurisdictions claim they are simply declining to participate in federal immigration enforcement, a passive act. But providing free transit to help illegal immigrants access services, navigate around ICE operations, or relocate within a metro area is not passive. It is active assistance, funded by people who never voted for it and administered by officials who frame defiance as compassion.

The federal government doesn't owe localities transit funding. It provides it. And provisions on how that money gets spent are as old as federal grants themselves. Cities that accept highway funds agree to speed limits. Schools that accept federal education dollars agree to nondiscrimination rules. The principle that federal money comes with federal conditions has never been controversial until it collided with immigration politics.

Now, suddenly, attaching conditions is an overreach.

The Real Stakes

This proposal will be framed by its opponents as punitive, as an attack on transit systems that serve millions of riders. That framing collapses under the slightest pressure. The rule does not cut transit funding. It conditions a narrow slice of that funding on compliance with existing law. No city loses a dollar unless it chooses to spend federal transit money helping people evade federal immigration authorities.

That's not a funding cut. That's a choice.

Cities that want to run sanctuary transportation programs with their own revenue remain free to do so. The proposal simply says the federal taxpayer won't be conscripted into the effort. If local leaders believe sheltering illegal immigrants from enforcement is worth the political and fiscal cost, they can put their own budgets where their rhetoric is.

Most won't. That's the point.