By Nate Raymond
(Reuters) – A federal decide warned on Friday {that a} new govt order from President Donald Trump that requires slicing off funding to so-called sanctuary jurisdictions that don’t cooperate together with his immigration agenda can’t be used to evade a courtroom order barring his administration from doing simply that.
U.S. District Decide William Orrick in San Francisco issued Friday’s order on the urging of 16 cities and counties nationally that had already secured an injunction barring the administration from withholding all federal funding to them.
These cities and counties, led by San Francisco, sued after Trump signed two earlier govt orders in January and February that they stated unlawfully threatened to chop off funding to them except they cooperated with federal immigration regulation enforcement, together with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The jurisdictions embrace the cities of Minneapolis; New Haven, Connecticut; Portland, Oregon; St. Paul, Minnesota; Santa Fe, New Mexico; and Seattle, all of which have legal guidelines and insurance policies that restrict or stop native regulation enforcement from aiding federal officers with civil immigration arrests.
4 days after Orrick issued the injunction in April, Trump signed a brand new govt order directing Legal professional Basic Pam Bondi to create a listing of sanctuary jurisdictions and for companies to then establish grants and different funding to them they might cancel or droop.
The 16 native governments argued Trump issued the brand new govt order in “blatant disregard” for Orrick’s courtroom order and urged him to implement his injunction.
Orrick, who throughout Trump’s first time period in workplace blocked enforcement of an analogous 2017 govt order concentrating on sanctuary jurisdictions, stated on Friday that the most recent order had some materials variations from the sooner ones and, in some respects, might even resolve issues he recognized in them.
He stated the administration may probably establish funds to rescind if there was sufficient of a connection between the funding stream and the jurisdiction’s “sanctuary” insurance policies.
However Orrick stated if Trump’s newest order was used to as an alternative goal funds unrelated to sanctuary insurance policies, their suspension would violate the U.S. Structure simply as the sooner govt orders did.
He stated the context surrounding Trump’s new order raises the risk that the federal government would use it “to unconstitutionally coerce the cities and Counties (and different jurisdictions like them) into altering their insurance policies and practices to adapt with the second Trump administration’s preferences.”
San Francisco Metropolis Legal professional David Chiu in an announcement stated Friday’s order “makes clear that the federal authorities can not use Government Orders or different company motion to withhold federal funding as a coercive risk towards sanctuary jurisdictions.”
The U.S. Division of Justice didn’t reply to requests for remark.
(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston, Enhancing by Rosalba O’Brien)
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