JUDGE CITES TRUMP COMMENT IN ‘SANCTUARY CITY’ RULING
SAN FRANCISCO •Forthe third time in two months, a federal judge has knocked down an immigration order by President Donald Trump and used Trump’s own language against him.
In a ruling on Tuesday, U.S. District Judge William Orrick quoted Trump to support his decision to block the president’s order to withhold funding from “sanctuary cities” that do not co-operate with U.S. immigration officials.
Trump called the sanctuary cities order a “weapon” against communities that disagree with his preferred immigration policy, Orrick said. The judge also cited a February interview in which he said the president threatened to cut off funding to California, saying the state “in many ways is out of control.”
The first comment was evidence that the administration intended the executive order to apply broadly to all sorts of federal funding, and not a relatively small pot of grant money as the Department of Justice had argued, the judge said.
The second statement showed the two California governments that sued to block the order — San Francisco and Santa Clara County — had good reason to believe they would be targeted, Orrick said.
Orrick’s ruling was another immigration policy setback for the administration as it approaches its 100th day in office this month. The sanctuary city order was among a flurry of immigration measures Trump signed in January, including a ban on travellers from seven Muslim-majority countries and a directive calling for a wall on the Mexican border.
Trump reacted to the decision on Twitter on Wednesday morning, calling the decision “ridiculous” and saying he would take his fight to the highest court, tweeting: “See you in the Supreme Court.”
The president tweeted: “First the Ninth Circuit rules against the ban & now it hits again on sanctuary citiesboth ridiculous rulings.”
Trump’s words were also cited by federal judges in Maryland and Hawaii, who last month blocked his revised ban on new visas for people from six Muslimmajority countries. U.S. District Judge Derrick Watson in Hawaii and U.S. District Judge Theodore Chuang in Maryland said comments by the president supported the allegation that the ban was aimed at Muslims.
Orrick’s preliminary injunction against the sanctuary cities order will stay in place while the lawsuits by San Francisco and Santa Clara work their way through court.
White House chief of staff Reince Priebus described the ruling as another example of the “9th Circuit going bananas.”
The Trump administration says sanctuary cities allow dangerous criminals back on the street and that the order is needed to keep the country safe. San Francisco and other sanctuary cities say turning local police into immigration officers erodes the trust that is needed to get people to report crime.