On Tuesday, San Francisco became the first city to file suit against President Donald Trump over his Jan. 25 executive order to withhold federal funds from sanctuary cities.
“Sanctuary jurisdictions across the United States willfully violate federal law in an attempt to shield aliens from removal from the United States. These jurisdictions have caused immeasurable harm to the American people and to the very fabric of our republic,” the executive order read.
By issuing the order, Trump wants to “ensure that jurisdictions that fail to comply with applicable Federal law do not receive Federal funds, except as mandated by law,” according to the executive order.
The federal government sends San Francisco more than $1 billion annually, amounting to a little more that a tenth of the city's budget, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee and Police Chief William Scott signaled on Monday that they don’t intend to arrest city residents without documentation, U.S. News said.
According to the Los Angeles Times, the executive order would be difficult to enforce because most federal funding would be exempt. The one exception: money for law enforcement, which Trump isn’t likely to cut anyway.
The suit may also have ample grounds to move forward, since executive orders like this one have previously been interpreted as infringing too much on state’s rights, the L.A. Times points out. Sanctuary cities are those that offer support or protection to illegal immigrants rather than arresting and deporting them.
At the press conference Tuesday announcing the legal action, city attorney Dennis Herrera cited, among other reasons like the order's "unconstitutionality" and "un-American-ness," that it's not the city's job to do the federal government's, the San Francisco Examiner reported. “President Trump’s executive order tries to turn city and state employees into federal immigration officers,” he said.
"Using city and county resources for federal immigration enforcement breeds distrust of local government and officials who have no power to change federal laws ... San Francisco has directed its employees and officers not to assist the federal government in enforcing federal immigration law, with limited exceptions," the lawsuit stated, according to the San Francisco Business Times.
San Francisco declared itself a sanctuary city in 1989, according to the L.A. Times, and has attempted to cut ties with federal immigration officials as well as refused to cooperate with them. The city also implemented an ordinance in 2013 saying that local law enforcement could not hold immigrants in custody for federal immigration officials if they had no charges pending against them and no violent felonies on record, the L.A. Times said.
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