Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Trump administration pulls back on ‘sanctuary cities’ order
WASHINGTON — In an apparent retreat from an attack on cities and counties that refuse to cooperate with immigration enforcement, the Trump administration has settled on a narrow definition of what it means to be a “sanctuary city” and has limited the potential financial consequences for state and local governments.
At most, the sanctuary jurisdictions will lose grants from the Justice Department and the Homeland Security Department — not all federal funds, according to an order signed Monday by Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
During last year’s campaign and in the early days of the administration, President Donald Trump and Sessions frequently attacked cities, states and corrections agencies that refused to assist with federal immigration enforcement, saying illegal immigration was fueling what they described as a surge in crime.
Five days after taking office, Trump signed an executive order that said sanctuary jurisdictions were not eligible to receive federal grants, and Sessions later emphasized that point at a White House news briefing.
“Countless Americans would be alive today and countless loved ones would not be grieving today if these policies of sanctuary cities were ended,” Sessions said.
The Justice Department followed that on April 21 with letters to nine jurisdictions, saying they were at risk of losing their grants from the department.
But U.S. District Judge William Orrick III in San Francisco blocked enforcement of Trump’s order nationwide on April 25, ruling that it violated the Constitution and brought on “substantial confusion and justified fear” in local governments that they would lose all their federal grants, not just their law enforcement funding.
“The president has called it ‘a weapon’ to use against jurisdictions that disagree with his preferred policies of immigration enforcement,” said Orrick, appointed a judge by President Barack Obama. Orrick’s ruling came as a response to lawsuits filed by the city of San Francisco and Santa Clara County.
In an angry tweet, Trump called the ruling “ridiculous” and vowed to “see you in the Supreme Court!” The administration has not yet filed an appeal.
The ruling was an early setback for Trump’s plans to crack down on immigration. Federal judges also froze his order banning travel from six Muslimmajority nations, and his promise to build a wall on the southwestern border hasn’t been funded by Congress.
The Trump administration had never actually spelled out what it meant to be a sanctuary city. On the campaign trail, Trump focused on immigrants who committed crimes after cities released them from custody, including the case of Kathryn Steinle, a San Francisco woman who was killed by a man in the country illegally who had been in jail.
But Sessions’ memo, a reaction to Orrick’s order, doesn’t mention that. Instead, it says that the term will apply only to places that “willfully refuse to comply” with a 1996 federal law that requires federal, state and local governments to share information about someone’s immigration status.
That means Trump’s threat in his executive order may not amount to much. When cities and counties accept grants from the Justice Department, they already agree to comply with that law — and Orrick’s order also said he wasn’t barring the administration from enforcing existing grant agreements.
It also means Trump’s Jan. 25 order won’t apply to cities and counties that refuse to honor “detainer” requests to hold people who are in the country illegally for arrest on immigration charges.
Immigration rights advocates saw the memo as an admission by the Justice Department that the law was not on its side in the sanctuary city argument.