Dan Sullivan on Crime and Public Safety: Votes Against Police Hiring and Youth Mentoring Money, Confirming Pam Bondi, and Guard Deployments That Took Alaska Troops to D.C.

On June 5, 2026, Alaska Senator Dan Sullivan voted against an amendment to fund local police hiring and against one to fund Justice Department youth mentoring programs, then voted for the Secure America Act, which provides about $70 billion for immigration enforcement. The votes came a year after the Justice Department under Pam Bondi, whom Sullivan voted to confirm, cancelled 373 violence prevention, victim services and youth grants worth about $820 million.

Sullivan voted to confirm the attorney general, FBI director and defense secretary who moved thousands of federal agents into immigration work and sent National Guard troops into American cities, and in October 2025 he voted against requiring a governor's consent for such deployments. Alaska sent 25 Guard members to the Washington, D.C. mission in May 2026.

Dan Sullivan's Votes and Confirmations on Policing and Public Safety

• Sullivan Voted Against Money for Local Police Hiring and Youth Mentoring, Then for $70 Billion in Immigration Enforcement. On June 5, 2026, Dan Sullivan voted no on an amendment to the Secure America Act to appropriate money for local law enforcement hiring programs, which was rejected 45 to 53, and voted no on an amendment to transfer money to Justice Department youth mentoring programs, which lost 46 to 53. He then voted for the bill, which passed 52 to 47; The bill would provide $70 billion to fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection, NOTUS reported. A year earlier the Justice Department had cut youth and violence prevention programs: in Houston, the Teen and Police Service Academy, a mentoring program in Houston that had to reduce its staff, lost its grant, NPR reported.
• Sullivan Voted to Confirm Pam Bondi, Whose Justice Department Cancelled $820 Million in Crime Prevention and Victim Grants. On February 4, 2025, Sullivan voted to confirm Pam Bondi as attorney general; she was confirmed 54 to 46. In April 2025 her department terminated 373 Office of Justice Programs grants, and The defunded grants were initially valued at about $820 million, the Council on Criminal Justice found, and a federal judge who dismissed the grantees' suit on jurisdiction grounds wrote, It is likely to harm communities and individuals vulnerable to crime and violence. Terminated awards included 59 grants from the Office for Victims of Crime, according to a letter from House Democrats, and as of December 2025 there were only 35 grants restored and 17 denied as of December 2025 on appeal. The department then rewrote the violence intervention grant program so that Now, only city, county, and tribal governments are permitted to apply, shutting out community violence intervention groups.
• Sullivan Cast One of the 50 Votes for a Law That Bars New Police Money From Going to Violence Intervention. On July 1, 2025, Sullivan voted yes on H.R. 1, which passed 50 to 50 with the Vice President's vote and gave the Justice Department $3.33 billion, including money for state and local police grants. The law says No funds made available under this subsection shall be made available to community violence intervention and prevention initiative programs, and it conditions the police money on states and cities being in full compliance, as determined by the Attorney General, with federal immigration information-sharing law.
• Sullivan Voted to Confirm the FBI Director and Deputy Attorney General Who Moved Agents to Immigration Work. Sullivan voted to confirm Kash Patel as FBI director on February 20, 2025, by 51 to 49, and Todd Blanche as deputy attorney general on March 5, 2025. In total, 9,161 people at the FBI worked on immigration by late 2025, according to records obtained by The Intercept, and by September 2025 80 percent of the ATF's roughly 2,500 agents had been pulled into immigration task force work at some point. gun prosecutions fell more than 10 percent in 40 of the nation's 94 federal districts in 2025, according to a Reuters analysis cited by The Trace.
• Sullivan Cast the Deciding Vote for Pete Hegseth and Voted Against Limits on Guard Deployments to Cities. On January 24, 2025, Sullivan voted to confirm Pete Hegseth as secretary of defense, a 50 to 50 vote broken by the Vice President. On October 9, 2025, he voted no on an amendment to the defense bill on the REQUIREMENT OF CONSENT OF THE CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER FOR CERTAIN FULL-TIME NATIONAL GUARD DUTY in a state, which failed 47 to 50, and voted no on limiting the armed forces' support of civilian law enforcement, which lost 46 to 52. Hegseth's department sent the Guard into Los Angeles, Washington, Memphis, Portland and Chicago, and a federal judge found the Los Angeles deployment violated a federal law against military members conducting domestic law enforcement, warning of a national police force with the President as its chief. CBO estimated the deployments cost taxpayers approximately $496 million from June through December last year, and the Defense Department said the National Guard will remain deployed in Washington, D.C., through Inauguration Day 2029.

What the Public Safety Decisions Dan Sullivan Backed Mean for Alaska

• Alaska Guard members. Alaska will deploy 25 National Guard soldiers and airmen to Washington D.C. in May 2026 for the mission that began with the August 2025 crime emergency declaration, the Alaska Beacon reported.
• D.C. mission. Across the country, about 9,700 troops from across the country have served in the nation's capital, with troop housing under a $292 million contract, 7News reported. Alaska's 25 Guard members joined that mission in May 2026.

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Last updated: 2026-10-25

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