Court ruling deals blow to sanctuary city policy
Decision: Trump executive order exceded authority
SAN FRANCISCO — A divided U.S. appeals court on Wednesday struck down a key part of President Donald Trump’s contentious effort to crack down on cities and states that limit cooperation with immigration officials, saying an executive order threatening to cut funding for so-called sanctuary cities was unconstitutional.
In a 2-1 decision, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with a lower court that the order exceeded the president’s authority. Congress alone controls spending under the U.S. Constitution, and presidents do not have the power to withhold funding it approves to pursue their policy goals, the court majority said.
“By its plain terms, the executive order directs the agencies of the executive branch to withhold funds appropriated by Congress in order to further the administration’s policy objective of punishing cities and counties that adopt so-called ‘sanctuary’ policies,” wrote Chief Judge Sidney Thomas, joined by Judge Ronald
Gould, who both were nominated by Democratic President Bill Clinton.
The court, however, also said the lower-court judge went too far when he blocked enforcement of Trump’s order nationwide after a lawsuit by two California counties — San Francisco and Santa Clara.
Thomas said there wasn’t enough evidence to support a nationwide ban, limited the injunction to California and sent the case back to the lower court for more arguments on whether a wider ban was warranted.
In March 2017, the city of Santa Fe, which long has declared itself welcoming to immigrants, filed an amicus brief in support of the lawsuit, alongside almost three dozen other cities and counties across the U.S.
“It’s unprecedented and unfortunate that the president has taken this route, choosing to spend his early term attacking the cities that drive our nation’s economy and innovation,” former Santa Fe Mayor Javier Gonzales said at the time. Gonzales, who spoke on national television news shows about Trump’s immigration policies, became the public face of sanctuary cities for a time.
Mayor Alan Webber did not return a message seeking comment on the appeals court decision in the case.
The decision overall is a big win for opponents of the executive order, but Trump could try to enforce it against jurisdictions outside the nine Western states covered by the 9th Circuit, said David Levine, an expert on federal court procedure at the University of California, Hastings College of Law.
“If they wanted to go after Chicago, if they wanted to go after Denver or Philadelphia, they would not be bound by an injunction,” he said. “Those places would have to bring their own lawsuits and whatever happens, happens in those cases.”
Devin O’Malley, a spokesman for the U.S. Justice Department, called the ruling a victory for “criminal aliens in California, who can continue to commit crimes knowing that the state’s leadership will protect them from federal immigration officers whose job it is to hold them accountable and remove them from the country.”
Trump signed the executive order in January 2017 — part of a push by his administration to go after cities and states that don’t work with U.S. immigration authorities.
The government also has moved to withhold a particular law enforcement grant from sanctuary jurisdictions and sued California over three laws that extend protections to people in the country illegally.
The court, however, also said the lowercourt judge went too far when he blocked enforcement of Trump’s order nationwide after a lawsuit by two California counties.