Judge rules Trump can't cut federal funds to sanctuary cities

LOS ANGELES — A federal judge blocked the Trump administration from denying funds to sanctuary cities in a ruling Tuesday.

U.S. District Judge William Orrick in San Francisco ruled in favor of Santa Clara County, San Francisco and other jurisdictions that argued that a threat to withhold funds from cities that do not cooperate with federal enforcement could be unconstitutional under separation of powers doctrine.

Though Orrick was ruling in the northern California lawsuits, his ruling has national scope because, he wrote, “where a law is unconstitutional on its face, and not simply in its application to certain plaintiffs, a nationwide injunction is appropriate.”

President Donald Trump sparked the issue when he threatened in a Jan. 25 directive to withhold federal funding from sanctuary jurisdictions violating federal law “in an attempt to shield aliens from deportation.”

“The court found the Trump administration’s arguments were not legally plausible, and the court sided with us on every substantive issue,” San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera said in a statement.

Sessions-Jeff-U.S. Attorney General-Bloomberg
Jeff Sessions, U.S. attorney general, speaks as Sean Spicer, White House press secretary, left, listens during a White House briefing in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Monday, March 27, 2017. Some 200 jurisdictions have refused to honor federal requests to evict undocumented immigrants and the nation is less safe when jurisdictions fail to carry out deportations, Sessions said. Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg

By taking the President to court, “we have been able to protect billions of dollars that fund lifesaving programs across the country,” Herrera said.

The actual hit to federal funds from the Trump administration’s action is unclear. But, Orroick found that without the injunction, cities could suffer irreparable harm.

Santa Clara said it received roughly $1.7 billion in federal funds, making up roughly 35% of the county’s total revenues in fiscal year 2015-16, according to court documents. San Francisco’s yearly budget is roughly $9.6 billion, and city officials said in court documents, it receives roughly $1.2 billion of this from the federal government.

“To succeed in their motions, the counties must show that they are likely to face immediate reparable harm absent an injunction, that they are likely to succeed on the merits, and that the balance of harms and public interest weighs in their favor,” Orrick wrote. “The counties have met this burden.”

U.S. Justice Department attorneys tried to clear up some of the confusion around Trump’s executive order during a hearing earlier this month. They said it would apply to jurisdictions that refuse to share citizenship information as required by law and would apply to only three federal grants from the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security that require compliance as a pre-condition.

Orrick wrote that interpretation rendered the order toothless because the government can already enforce those three grants to the extent legally possibly under existing law.

After reviewing Trump’s own rhetoric, and statements made by Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Press Secretary Sean Spicer and found their comments contradicted the narrow interpretation of the Justice Department lawyers.

The Department of Justice said Tuesday that it will continue to enforce a federal law that forbids communities from blocking reports on people's immigration status to federal authorities.

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Litigation California
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