Federal Judge Halts Trump's Plan to Punish Sanctuary Cities

By teleSUR

26 April 17

U.S. District Judge William Orrick ruled that U.S. President Donald Trump has no authority to attach new conditions to federal spending.

esterday a federal judge blocked a Trump Administration order to withhold funding from communities that limit cooperation with U.S. immigration authorities.

U.S. District Judge William Orrick ruled that U.S. President Donald Trump has no authority to attach new conditions to federal spending. Orrick issued the temporary judgment in a lawsuit against the executive order targeting sanctuary cities. The decision will remain in place as the lawsuit goes through the court.

The Trump Administration and two California governments that sued over the order disagreed about its scope during a recent hearing. San Francisco and Santa Clara County argued that it threatened billions of dollars in federal funding for each of them, making it difficult to plan their budgets.“It’s not like it’s just some small amount of money,” John Keker, an attorney for Santa Clara County, told Orrick.

Acting Assistant Attorney General Chad Readler said the county and San Francisco were interpreting the executive order too broadly. He explained that the funding cutoff applies to three Justice Department and Homeland Security Department grants that require complying with a federal law that local governments not block officials from providing people’s immigration status. The order, Readler explained, would affect less than $1 million in funding for Santa Clara County and possibly no money for San Francisco. Republican President Donald Trump was using a “bully pulpit” to “encourage communities and states to comply with the law,” Readler added.

But Orrick sided with San Francisco and Santa Clara, saying the order “by its plain language, attempts to reach all federal grants, not merely the three mentioned at the hearing. The rest of the order is broader still, addressing all federal funding,” Orrick said. “And if there was doubt about the scope of the order, the president and attorney general have erased it with their public comments.” He added that, “Federal funding that bears no meaningful relationship to immigration enforcement cannot be threatened merely because a jurisdiction chooses an immigration enforcement strategy of which the president disapproves.” San Francisco and the county argued in court documents that the president did not have the authority to set conditions on the allocation of federal funds and could not force local officials to enforce federal immigration law.

The Trump Administration says sanctuary cities allow dangerous criminals back on the street and that the order is needed to keep the country safe. San Francisco and other sanctuary cities rebutted that argument stating that turning local police into immigration officers threaten the trust needed to persuade people to report crimes.

The order also has led to lawsuits by Seattle; two Massachusetts cities, Lawrence and Chelsea and a third San Francisco Bay Area government, the city of Richmond. The San Francisco and Santa Clara County suits were the first to get a hearing before a judge.

The sanctuary city order was among a flurry of immigration measures Trump has signed since taking office in January.