A federal judge on Wednesday heard a challenge brought by the city of San Francisco and other local jurisdictions to President Trump’s crackdown on “sanctuary city” policies.
District Judge William Orrick of the Northern District of California heard arguments at a hearing that took place Wednesday afternoon in San Francisco.
The city and nearly a dozen other local governments from across the country are suing the administration. The plaintiffs are seeking a preliminary injunction blocking Mr. Trump from enforcing executive orders that seek to stop federal funding to cities that limit local cooperation with federal immigration agents — commonly known as “sanctuary cities.”
Officials in San Francisco and Santa Clara County, California, initially filed the lawsuit on Feb. 7. Since then, several other California cities, along with Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, and Santa Fe, New Mexico, joined the complaint.
“They want to commandeer local police officers as federal ICE agents, while strong-arming local officials with threats of withholding federal funds that support our police department, our efforts to address homelessness, and our public health system,” San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu said in a statement ahead of Wednesday’s hearing. “As we have seen, the Trump Administration has now deported someone by error, and ICE agents have unlawfully arrested United States citizens.”
San Francisco has had sanctuary laws in place since 1989. The city said studies have consistently shown immigrants are less likely to commit crimes, while sanctuary jurisdictions either see no increase in crime or have lower crime rates.
Opponents of sanctuary policies allege that they have led to the release of alleged criminals in those jurisdictions, including people whom immigration agents are seeking to deport. Supporters argue that threatening to deport immigrants in the country illegally erodes trust in local government agencies and makes people fearful to report crimes, go to school or obtain needed healthcare.
San Francisco sued the federal government during the first Trump administration after it tried to withhold federal funds from the city because of its sanctuary policies. The city prevailed in that suit in 2018 after an appeals court ruled the policies were legal and the withholding of funds was unconstitutional.
Along with the above jurisdictions, the lawsuit is also being brought by Emeryville, Monterey County, Oakland, Sacramento, San Diego, San Jose and Santa Cruz in California; New Haven, Connecticut; Portland, Oregon; and King County, Washington.
California has also had a statewide law on the books since 2017 limiting state and local police’s involvement in immigration enforcement. One of the law’s co-authors was Chiu, who was then a state assemblyman.
