Judge restricts crackdown on ‘sanctuary cities’
Ruling strikes down majority of Texas immigration law
A federal judge’s ruling that limits Texas’ ability to crack down on “sanctuary cities” marks the latest legal defeat for illegal immigration enforcement efforts by President Trump and state governments.
Wednesday’s decision by U.S. District Judge Orlando Garcia bars Texas from enforcing most of a state law that requires full compliance by cities with federal immigration enforcement efforts. The law had the Trump administration’s strong support.
The Texas ruling followed one in April in California, where a federal judge limited the administration’s ability to withhold federal grants to local communities that refused to cooperate with immigration enforcement.
Both decisions, which are being appealed, serve as an opening salvo against Trump and Republican-run states trying to ramp up immigration enforcement with local police help.
The outcome could establish a clear line between federal and state responsibilities on immigration enforcement, a gray area that has been the subject of an intense fight since Arizona passed a law cracking down on undocumented immigrants in 2010.
Thomas Saenz, president and general counsel of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, said Garcia’s ruling should be “required reading ” for lawyers in the White House and the Department of Homeland Security, which has carried out Trump’s efforts to increase immigration arrests and deportations.
“The judge makes clear that there are serious constitutional concerns with a lot of the pressure, a lot of the pronouncements, related to sanctuary cities coming from the White House,” said Saenz, who represented San Antonio and several groups that challenged Texas’ law.
“Sanctuary cities” is a general term that describes more than 300 local governments that have limited their cooperation with federal immigration officials. Trump attacked them during his presidential campaign.
The local communities have argued that immigration enforcement is a federal responsibility and that the U.S. Constitution prohibits Washington from forcing them to assist.
Even so, many GOP states are following Trump’s lead, with Texas at the forefront.
“I think we are going to see more state and local anti-immigration measures in light of the climate that’s being created by the Trump administration,” said Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project.
The legal battle between federal and local governments could take years to resolve, but court rulings so far have made some aspects clear.
The courts have allowed police officers to ask suspects they stop about their immigration status and share that information with federal immigration agents.
Garcia allowed that portion of Texas’ law to go into effect, just as the Supreme Court upheld a portion of Arizona’s law that required local police to ask suspects about their immigration status if the officer had a “reasonable suspicion” they entered the country illegally.
But courts also ruled against broader efforts to punish sanctuary cities. In 2012, the Supreme Court struck down portions of Arizona’s law targeting undocumented immigrants, and another section that allowed arrests of undocumented immigrants without a warrant.
In April, U.S. District Judge William Orrick in San Francisco ruled that the Trump administration could withhold some money from sanctuary cities, including three grant programs run by the Justice Department directly tied to law enforcement. But Orrick ruled that the administration overstepped its legal authority by threatening to withhold all federal grants.
On Wednesday, Garcia struck down a portion of Texas’ law that would have required local police to detain suspects for up to 48 hours if federal immigration agents placed a “detainer” on them. That’s a request to hold on to suspects to give Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents time to investigate their cases and decide whether to pick them up.