The Trump administration won a rare legal victory in its campaign against so-called sanctuary cities, when a federal appeals court ruled it may withhold federal funding under a specific program should a jurisdiction refuse to cooperate with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
On July 12, a three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals gave the administration the green light to withhold federal funding to Los Angeles under the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) grant program. The city applied for a little over $3 million under COPS in 2017 to hire 25 officers with the goal of “building trust and respect” through community policing. The city didn’t indicate on its application that immigration-related matters would be a priority for its police department.
