Evanston, Illinois - The US Department of Justice has joined a lawsuit targeting Evanston's first-in-the-nation reparations program for Black residents.

Evanston's Restorative Housing Program provides $25,000 grants to Black community members born between 1919 and 1969 who suffered from the city's legacy of housing discrimination, and their descendants.

The initiative – financed with revenue from a local cannabis sales tax – was designed to tackle the ongoing harms of racially discriminatory city policies and practices. To date, it has distributed over $7 million to hundreds of recipients.

The DOJ argued in a Tuesday complaint that the reparations program violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and the Fair Housing Act.

Migration ICE confirms Alligator Alcatraz has been emptied as migrants are relocated to other detention camps

"Under the pretext of paying reparations for events more than 100 years ago, the City of Evanston has chosen to distribute millions of dollars in cash and housing benefits to people because of the color of their skin or the color of the skin of their parents, grandparents, or great grandparents," Harmeet Dhillon, assistant attorney general of the DOJ's Civil Rights Division, said in a statement.

Dhillon went on to refer to the reparations program as "race discrimination, pure and simple."

The DOJ is seeking to join a lawsuit filed in 2024 by the conservative legal group Judicial Watch in the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.

In March, a federal judge rejected Evanston's attempt to dismiss the case.

First Repair, led by former Evanston alderman Robin Rue Simmons, described the DOJ's move as "unfortunate" but "not unexpected."

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. RFK Jr. orders US citizen exposed to hantavirus to stay quarantined despite CDC advice

"Reparations to victims of harmful zoning law is not only a policy initiative; it is a moral and civic responsibility to redress generations of systemic exclusion and ongoing harms, and to pay damage," the organization explained in a statement.

"The Evanston Reparations Program was designed specifically to address the municipal government's enforced, hyperlocal harm of unlawful zoning and housing policies that intentionally marginalized Black residents."

"Evanston stands as a beacon for more than 100 other localities across the country that are now engaging in their own critical work to pursue repair, damages and liberation for Black communities."