A San Francisco federal judge this week expanded an order forbidding the Trump administration from withholding federal funds from sanctuary cities for refusing to cooperate with immigration authorities.
U.S. District Judge William Orrick, a President Barak Obama appointee, on Friday extended his injunction from earlier this year that argued the administration was trying to coerce local officials to cooperate with agencies such as Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) on illegal alien arrests — calling it a violation of the Constitution.
Orrick added to his order other municipalities that have since joined the lawsuit against Trump’s funding policy, including Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston, Baltimore, Denver and Albuquerque, CBS reported.
The ruling is the result of a lawsuit filed back in February, led by San Francisco, and at the request of 16 cities and counties across the country.
The jurisdictions in the initial lawsuit include the cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota; New Haven, Connecticut; Portland, Oregon; Santa Fe, New Mexico; and Seattle, Washington.
All of these cities have laws and policies that restrict local law enforcement from assisting federal government with immigration arrests.
The February lawsuit challenged an executive order by President Trump called “Protecting the American People Against Invasion” that directs the Department of Homeland Security to withhold funds from sanctuary jurisdictions.
The cities and counties that sued argued that billions of dollars were at risk.
President Trump issued a similar order in his first term in 2017, and this same San Francisco judge ruled against the president in that case. As Breitbart News reported, Orrick issued a preliminary injunction on the current case back in April.
“He we are again,” Orrick wrote in that ruling.
The judge ruled that the administration’s withholding of funds violates the 10th Amendment, which establishes the division of power between national and local governments. Trump administration lawyers have appealed that decision.
In the most recent action Orrick also blocked the administration from placing immigration-related conditions on two grant programs, Fox News reported.
Supporters of sanctuary jurisdictions argue that cooperation with federal immigration enforcement discourages illegal aliens from coming forward as victims to or witnesses of crimes.
“The threat to withhold funding causes them irreparable injury in the form of budgetary uncertainty, deprivation of constitutional rights, and undermining trust between the Cities and Counties and the communities they serve,” Orrick said when he first levied the ban back in April.
Neither the White House nor Department of Homeland Security has yet to comment on the extended ruling.
Contributor Lowell Cauffiel is the best-selling author of Below the Line and nine other crime novels and nonfiction titles. See lowellcauffiel.com for more.
