US judge blocks Trump order on sanctuary cities

Decision could impact more than 300 cities and counties that have denounced order

AUS judge on Tuesday blocked an executive order by President Donald Trump that could deny billions of dollars to so-called sanctuary cities as punishment for harbouring illegal immigrants.

Dealing a fresh setback to Trump’s pledged crackdown on undocumented residents, Judge William Orrick of San Francisco’s federal court issued a preliminary injunction barring any attempt to implement the January 25 executive order.

“Federal funding that bears no meaningful relationship to immigration enforcement cannot be threatened merely because a jurisdiction chooses an immigration enforcement strategy of which the president disapproves,” Orrick said.

The decision — which could impact more than 300 cities and counties that have denounced Trump’s order — is another blow to the White House following successful court challenges to its two travel bans targeting Muslim-majority countries.

‘Historic affirmation’

Trump’s order threatened the transfer of some $1.7 billion (Dh6.24 billion) to Santa Clara County and $1.2 billion for San Francisco. The White House issued a scathing statement claiming that “the rule of law suffered another blow, as an unelected judge unilaterally rewrote immigration policy”.

The judge’s “erroneous ruling is a gift to the criminal gang and cartel element in our country,” and is “one more example of egregious overreach” by a single judge that “undermines faith in our legal system”.

Nevertheless “we are confident we will ultimately prevail in the Supreme Court,” the statement read.

Santa Clara counsel James R. Williams described it as “a historic affirmation” of the constitutional principle that Washington cannot “coerce local governments into becoming federal immigration enforcers.”

Orrick noted government lawyers had sought to avoid arguing the issue of whether the Trump administration had the right to take such steps.

Instead, they weakly challenged the right of San Francisco and Santa Clara County to fight the order.