Judge Warns Trump’s Order May Violate Previous Ruling on Sanctuary Cities

The Trump administration argued that the issue was premature since no funding had been withdrawn.

President Donald Trump takes questions from reporters in the Oval Office, on May 5, 2025. Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

A federal judge has admonished the Trump administration not to use a recent executive order on so-called sanctuary jurisdictions to sidestep a block he already placed on similar orders surrounding those jurisdictions’ funding.

Sanctuary jurisdictions are municipalities that refuse to cooperate with the federal government in enforcing immigration law.

“Litigation may not proceed with the coercive threat to end all federal funding hanging over the Cities and Counties’ heads like the sword of Damocles,” U.S. District Judge William Orrick said in an opinion on May 9.

That was a threat Orrick said the administration made with two executive orders in January and February. After Orrick blocked those orders in April, President Donald Trump signed another executive order directing department heads to identify “appropriate Federal funds to sanctuary jurisdictions, including grants and contracts, for suspension or termination as appropriate.”

His order came in response to a request from various cities and counties, which argued that Trump’s new order “re-enacts the same unconstitutional funding threats enjoined by [Orrick’s preliminary injunction].”

The Justice Department responded by telling Orrick on May 7 that their request sought “to curb the Executive Branch’s deliberative process concerning federal funding decisions and its internal review of state and local governments’ compliance with federal law.” The counties and cities, it added, were acting prematurely because Trump’s order “calls for an evaluation process and no funding has been impacted.”

Orrick said that identifying funds in a targeted way wouldn’t violate his April injunction or the Constitution. A more sweeping approach, he said, would. More specifically, he said the government couldn’t target certain funds based on the fact that sanctuary jurisdictions received them. Nor could the administration target all federal funds that sanctuary jurisdictions received.

His comments came as Trump pursued multiple avenues for bringing both financial and legal consequences to sanctuary jurisdictions.

His recent order, which came four days after Orrick’s injunction, accused the states of a “lawless insurrection against the supremacy of Federal law and the Federal Government’s obligation to defend the territorial sovereignty of the United States.”

Trump has also repeatedly denounced the jurisdictions, which he called “Death Traps” in a TruthSocial post quoted by Orrick. In that post, Trump said he sought to withhold all federal funding. The White House also released a fact sheet in his April executive order, stating that Trump was “following through on his promise to rid the United States of sanctuary cities.”

Orrick said these statements didn’t “inspire confidence” that the administration would merely identify funds for termination.

“President Trump’s actions, communications, and representations about sanctuary jurisdictions have made it perfectly clear that his ultimate goal is their elimination; directives from executive agencies in his administration have put finer points on his (often informal) expressions,” the California judge said.

Under Trump’s more recent order, Attorney General Pam Bondi must work with Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to publish the list within 30 days and notify the jurisdictions of their defiance of federal immigration law.

Other provisions directed the two department heads to take steps in order to stop practices that favored illegal immigrants over Americans, as well as to ensure appropriate eligibility verification is conducted for individuals receiving federal public benefits.