Judge Bars Government From Blocking Funding to 34 Cities, Counties Over Sanctuary Policies

The order affects Boston, Seattle, Los Angeles, Baltimore, Portland, Chicago, and many more.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers arrest an illegal immigrant during an operation in the Bushwick neighborhood of Brooklyn in New York City on April 11, 2018. John Moore/Getty Images

A federal judge ruled on Aug. 22 that the federal government cannot suspend funding to 34 “sanctuary” jurisdictions across the country that limit or refuse cooperation with federal immigration enforcement.

U.S. District Judge William Orrick in San Francisco ordered the extension of a preliminary injunction that bars the administration from blocking funding or placing conditions on federal money for those jurisdictions. The judge also blocked the administration from imposing immigration-related conditions on two particular grant programs.

The Trump administration has tried to block funding to dozens of cities and counties by cutting off their Housing and Urban Development grants because they either have not cooperated with or have obstructed the federal government in its enforcement of immigration law.

Those protected under Orrick’s order include the cities of Boston; Chicago; Denver; Seattle; Los Angeles; San Diego; Baltimore; San Jose, California; and Albuquerque, New Mexico. Some of the major counties covered under the order are Multnomah County in Oregon, which encompasses Portland, Oregon; Allegheny County in Pennsylvania, which encompasses Pittsburgh; and Hennepin County in Minnesota, which encompasses Minneapolis.

The Trump administration has ratcheted up pressure on sanctuary communities as it seeks to make good on President Donald Trump’s campaign promise to remove millions of people who are in the country illegally.

One executive order issued by Trump directs Attorney General Pam Bondi and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to withhold federal money from sanctuary jurisdictions. Another order directs every federal agency to ensure that payments to state and local governments do not “abet so-called ‘sanctuary’ policies that seek to shield illegal aliens from deportation.”

In May, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) released a list of more than 500 “sanctuary jurisdictions” and said that all of those municipalities and counties would be sent a formal notification deeming them to be noncompliant with the Trump administration’s orders. Those officials would also be informed by DHS of whether they were considered to be in violation of any federal laws.

Orrick said in his order that the administration’s decisions to withhold federal funding in those jurisdictions are a “coercive threat” that he deemed to be unconstitutional.

“I determined that the Cities and Counties are likely to succeed on the merits of their claims that defendants’ actions with respect to the enjoined executive orders and related agency directives were unconstitutional violations of the separation of powers and spending clause doctrines and violated the Fifth Amendment, Tenth Amendment and Administrative Procedure Act,” he wrote.

In recent months, the Justice Department has ramped up pressure on several major cities over such policies. For example, the department filed a lawsuit against New York City and Mayor Eric Adams’s administration challenging the city’s laws on how it handles illegal immigrants.

“New York City has released thousands of criminals on the streets to commit violent crimes against law-abiding citizens due to sanctuary city policies,” Bondi said in a statement last month in announcing the legal challenge. “If New York City won’t stand up for the safety of its citizens, we will.”

Her office has also filed similar lawsuits targeting New York state, Colorado, Illinois, Los Angeles, several cities in New Jersey, and Rochester, New York, according to the statement.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.