Sanctuary cities win reprieve from Donald Trump’s crackdown order

Sanctuary cities and counties won a preliminary injunction on Thursday blocking the administration from punishing them by withholding federal funds, with a judge saying the Trump team is stretching the law too far.

U.S. District Judge William Orrick said President Trump’s order to withhold criminal justice money from jurisdictions that refuse to cooperate with federal immigration enforcement was too vague.

The judge also said it trod on Congress’ power of the purse, since Congress created the grant programs that fund the jurisdictions, and lawmakers didn’t allow for the new conditions that Mr. Trump is trying to impose.

For good measure, Judge Orrick said the moves violate the 10th Amendment to the Constitution because they try to commandeer local authorities to help with federal law enforcement.

“The threat to withhold funding causes them irreparable injury in the form of budgetary uncertainty, deprivation of constitutional rights, and undermining trust between the cities and counties and the communities they serve,” he ruled.

The decision mirrors one he issued during the first Trump administration, when the judge invalidated an attempt to punish sanctuary jurisdictions for resisting cooperation with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Judge Orrick said the cities and counties are on stronger footing this time around.

Those areas sued even though the Trump administration has yet to take action against them under the executive order.

The judge’s reprieve applied to the jurisdictions that sued: San Francisco, Sacramento, Santa Cruz, Oakland, Emeryville and San Diego, all in California; Santa Fe, New Mexico; Seattle; Portland, Oregon; New Haven, Connecticut; plus King County, Washington; and Monterey and Santa Clara counties in California.

Mr. Trump issued his anti-sanctuary order on Jan. 20, instructing his administration to “undertake any lawful actions to ensure that so-called ‘sanctuary jurisdictions,’ which seek to interfere with the lawful exercise of federal law enforcement operations, do not receive access to federal funds.”

Mr. Trump followed with a Feb.19 order telling his administration to block taxpayer money from places that have sanctuary policies “that seek to shield illegal aliens from deportation.”

Trump lawyers argued that the lawsuit was “conjecture and speculation” at this point.

They pointed out that no money had been withheld.

But Judge Orrick said the jurisdictions have good reason to fear, given the rhetoric — and lawsuits — the Trump team has aimed at sanctuary policies in New York and Illinois.