At the same time that the Trump administration has moved to begin suing so-called "Sanctuary Cities" for interfering with federal immigration enforcement, San Francisco's City Attorney has joined with Santa Clara County and others have launched a preemptive legal strike to block the Department of Justice and other federal agencies from taking action against them for refusing to cooperate with federal immigration authorities in deporting criminals and other illegal immigrants.
On Feb. 7, San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu filed suit in federal court in San Francisco seeking court orders preventing the Trump administration from both cutting off federal funds to cities and other local governments who the administration asserts working to protect criminal illegal immigrants and obstruct federal immigration enforcement.
Chiu was joined in the action by attorneys representing the governments of Santa Clara County; King County, Washington; and the cities of Portland, Oregon, and New Haven, Connecticut.
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi
| Florida Attorney General's office
“This is the federal government illegally asserting a right it does not have, telling cities how to use their resources, and commandeering local law enforcement," Chiu said in a statement announcing the lawsuit. "This is the federal government coercing local officials to bend to their will or face defunding or prosecution. That is illegal and authoritarian."
The complaint comes as President Donald Trump and his administration have signaled their intention of taking action against city, county and state governments who the administration has said are using so-called "Sanctuary" or "Welcoming" laws and ordinances to interfere with efforts by federal immigration authorities to locate and deport illegal immigrants, including those charged or convicted of violent crimes.
That threat manifested into reality last week, when the Department of Justice filed suit in Chicago federal court against the state of Illinois, city of Chicago and Cook County, that state's most populous county, which envelops Chicago and many of its closest suburbs.
In that action, the Justice Department specifically took aim at the "Sanctuary" laws and ordinances enacted by those governments, which the administration said "have the purpose and effect of making it more difficult for, and deliberately impeding, federal immigration officers’ ability to carry out their responsibilities in those jurisdictions."
The DOJ asserted such ordinances and laws are illegal and unconstitutional, as they trample on the federal government's ability to enforce its immigration laws, effectively positioning state and local governments as a shield to protect illegal immigrants from deportation, as authorized by federal law.
Further, the DOJ said the "Sanctuary" laws and policies "facilitate the release of dangerous criminals into the community" by directly forbidding police and correctional officials from cooperating with federal immigration officials' request to detain criminal illegal immigrants and give Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) the chance to pick them up and remove them from the country.
"For too long, leaders in Illinois and Chicago have abused their power by putting the comfort of illegal aliens over the safety and welfare of their own citizens," Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement released along with the filing of the lawsuit in Chicago. "This ends today."
According to published reports, Bondi indicated the Justice Department could bring similar legal actions against other "Sanctuary" jurisdictions who have similarly forbidden their local officials from cooperating with ICE in removing criminal illegal immigrants from the country.
The state of California and many California cities, including San Francisco, have codified those "Sanctuary" policies, drawing criticism from many who note the laws and ordinances have the effect of essentially enticing immigrants to cross into the U.S. illegally and settle in California, where local officials would hamper the efforts of ICE to locate and deport them.
Recently, the city of Huntington Beach filed suit in federal court in Orange County to challenge California's "Sanctuary" law. In that suit, Huntington Beach argues the state's law has placed cities like Huntington Beach in an impossible situation of choosing whether to violate state law or violate federal immigration law and the so-called Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution, which establishes federal law as the supreme law of the land.
That lawsuit remains pending.
In the meantime, Chiu said San Francisco and other Democrat-dominated local governments were motivated to take action to win court orders preventing Trump from using executive orders and associated policies and initiatives to pressure defiant local governments into complying with federal immigration law and cooperating with ICE.
They assert their "Sanctuary" ordinances and their directives forbidding local police and other officials from cooperating with ICE are meant to increase public safety in their communities by helping to assure illegal immigrants living in their community that cooperating with local police will not directly lead to deportation.
They claim the ordinances have made their cities, counties and states "safer."
The complaint does not address claims by the Trump administration and others that crime rates in cities like San Francisco soared in recent years under lax immigration enforcement policies under former President Joe Biden, when millions of illegal immigrants walked across the U.S. border and were released into the country after claiming "asylum," if they were interdicted at all.
Chiu and his counterparts argue Trump's immigration-related executive orders and accompanying directives to cut off federal funds from non-compliant "Sanctuary" jurisdictions, as well as potentially prosecute and sue officials carrying out the alleged obstruction of ICE, are unconstitutional overreaches of executive power.
They argue the executive actions by Trump and Bondi amount to efforts by the federal government to "commandeer" state and local governments to assist with federal immigration enforcement.
"... President Trump seeks once again to punish those who disagree with him, coerce local authorities, and commandeer them into carrying out his agenda," Chiu and his colleagues wrote in their complaint.
"His actions fly in the face of foundational constitutional principles. They violate plain statutory language and numerous court orders. And they force local governments that have made deliberate decisions about how to make their communities safer and where to spend their own resources into an impossible choice - to relinquish their autonomy and independence and abandon their valid laws and policies, or face the sudden and devastating loss of federal funding and civil and criminal enforcement action."
They argue any authorization for such actions to coerce compliance must originate in Congress.
The Trump administration has not yet responded to the lawsuit in court and no action has yet been taken in the case by a judge.
A federal district judge has not yet been assigned to the case. It is currently before federal Magistrate Judge Sallie Kim.