Injunction granted to San Francisco, other cities challenging Trump sanctuary city crackdown

A federal judge in California issued a preliminary injunction Thursday blocking the Trump administration from pulling funds from so-called “sanctuary cities” following a lawsuit brought by San Francisco and other local governments across the U.S.

“The Cities and Counties have also demonstrated a likelihood of irreparable harm,” Judge William Orrick of the Northern District of California wrote in the order. “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.”

Orrick heard arguments at a hearing that took place in San Francisco on Wednesday afternoon. 

The plaintiffs are seeking to block President Trump from enforcing executive orders that would halt federal funding to cities and other local governments that limit local cooperation with federal immigration agents through sanctuary policies.

Officials in San Francisco and Santa Clara County, California initially filed a lawsuit in February, which has since been joined by several other cities and counties in California, along with Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota; Santa Fe, New Mexico; and Seattle, Washington.

“The Court’s ruling puts an immediate pause on the Trump Administration’s illegal attempts to freeze federal funding simply because it disagrees with local governments’ constitutionally protected decision not to use local resources for immigration enforcement,” Santa Clara County Counsel Tony LoPresti said in a statement. 

San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu said in a statement ahead of Wednesday’s hearing that Trump administration officials “want to commandeer local police officers as federal [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] agents, while strong-arming local officials with threats of withholding federal funds that support our police department, our efforts to address homelessness, and our public health system.” 

“As we have seen, the Trump Administration has now deported someone by error, and ICE agents have unlawfully arrested United States citizens,” Chiu alleged.

In an interview with CBS News Bay Area Thursday afternoon, Chiu said, “We’re really grateful to the judge here for reiterating what we knew from eight years ago.”

San Francisco sued the first Trump administration in 2017 after it tried to withhold federal funds from the city because of its sanctuary policies. The city prevailed in that suit in 2018 after an appeals court ruled the policies were legal and the withholding of funds was unconstitutional.

“We prevailed then as we just prevailed this morning,” Chiu went on to say.