Santa Clara County, San Francisco and a nationwide group of cities have requested a federal courtroom to quickly halt President Donald Trump’s plans to chop funding to immigration “sanctuaries” that restrict the flexibility of native regulation enforcement officers to help with deportations.
Attorneys representing the cities and counties filed a movement Monday night within the U.S. District Courtroom for the Northern District of California. The movement seeks a right away keep on Trump’s plans to chop or freeze funding to sanctuary jurisdictions.
Santa Clara County Counsel Tony LoPresti and San Francisco Metropolis Lawyer David Chiu argue within the movement that these plans “violate fundamental constitutional rights,” together with the Tenth Modification, “and run roughshod over bedrock principles of our democracy.”
Rapidly after taking workplace, Trump signed an govt order declaring that sanctuary jurisdictions intrude with federal regulation enforcement operations to take away unlawful immigrations.
He directed the U.S. Lawyer Normal’s workplace and federal businesses to make sure that sanctuary jurisdictions “do not receive access to federal funds.” These plans to withhold funding are technically separate from his efforts to slash the scale of the federal authorities with the help of billionaire Elon Musk.
The Trump administration has but to truly reduce off funding, LoPresti mentioned.
“This is about us trying to get ahead of it and prevent it from occurring,” he mentioned in an interview.
Santa Clara County officers have mentioned that might be disastrous for the county’s capability to pay for well being care, training, infrastructure and different important companies. In accordance with LoPresti, the county receives about $3.6 billion a 12 months from the federal authorities — a couple of third of its whole price range.
The White Home didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
Together with Santa Clara County, San Jose and San Francisco, 13 cities have signed onto the lawsuit, together with Oakland. A listening to within the Northern District courtroom is about for April 23, LoPresti mentioned.
The tip objective is for a choose to completely freeze Trump’s plans, he added.
LoPresti and Chiu initially filed the authorized problem to Trump’s plans on Feb. 7.
The movement is the most recent volley in a years-long bout between Trump and Democrat-led cities and counties over sanctuary insurance policies.
Whereas Trump and Republicans say these insurance policies enable immigrants with critical felony information to flee deportation, Santa Clara County and San Francisco contend that immigration enforcement is a federal duty, and utilizing native regulation enforcement for immigration erodes group belief and distracts from a deal with native points.
Throughout Trump’s first time period, California handed a sanctuary regulation that prohibits native regulation enforcement statewide from helping in immigration raids or handing over folks booked into county jails to federal immigration authorities, amongst different restrictions.
Cities and counties throughout the Bay Space, together with Alameda County, Oakland and Berkeley, additionally adopted or reaffirmed native sanctuary ordinances.
In 2017, in the course of the first Trump administration, the federal authorities sought to freeze funding to sanctuary cities, however native governments, together with Santa Clara County, efficiently sued to cease the order. The case didn’t attain the U.S. Supreme Courtroom.
Employees Author Grace Hase contributed to this story.
Initially Printed: March 18, 2025 at 4:07 PM PDT
