San Francisco and Santa Clara County are suing the Trump administration for threatening to withhold federal funding from local jurisdictions with sanctuary policies that protect undocumented residents from deportation.
The two counties will join several other jurisdictions in the lawsuit, which was filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California on Friday, according to San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu.
The suit seeks to prevent the administration from potentially withholding billions of dollars in federal funds used for a variety of local and state needs.
The lawsuit comes amid a flurry of legal challenges to a series of executive orders issued by President Donald Trump after he took office in January, including Executive Order 14159, titled “Protecting the American People Against Invasion,” which sought to compel local jurisdictions whose governments do not cooperate with federal immigration authorities to do so.
The legal challenge was announced during a hybrid news conference Friday at San Francisco City Hall attended by Chiu, San Francisco Deputy City Attorney Yvonne Mere, who provided comments in Spanish, and Santa Clara County Counsel Tony LoPresti.
Chiu said the cities of New Haven, Connecticut, and Portland, Oregon, along with King County, Washington, joined the suit and he anticipated that several other jurisdictions would sign on before it was filed by the end of the day Friday.
The lawsuit also takes issue with a pair of memos issued by the U.S. Department of Justice, including one on Wednesday, that said local officials who do not comply with the administration’s orders could face prosecution.
The administration sued the city of Chicago, Cook County and the state of Illinois last week, but no local officials there were individually sued.
Chiu said that lawsuit proved the administration was serious about its legal pursuit.
“The Trump administration is asserting a right it does not have,” Chiu said at the news conference.
“They are trying to tell us how to use our resources and to commandeer our local law enforcement. This is the federal government coercing local officials to bend to their will, or face defunding or prosecution and that is illegal or authoritarian,” Chiu said.
San Francisco v. Trump, round two
The suit echoes one filed during Trump’s first term in office when he also targeted cities with sanctuary policies by trying to withhold federal funding.
A judge found in that case, San Francisco v. Trump, that the city’s laws complied with federal law and the administration’s attempts to withhold funding were unconstitutional.
LoPresti echoed Chiu’s rejection of the attempt to “commandeer” local resources for the purpose of carrying out a Trump administration policy of mass deportations. He said local jurisdictions had decided on this course because their sanctuary policies made them safer.
“They are trying to tell us how to use our resources and to commandeer our local law enforcement. This is the federal government coercing local officials to bend to their will, or face defunding or prosecution and that is illegal or authoritarian.”
David Chiu, San Francisco City Attorney
“We are striving to create a culture of trust and security within our communities so that our residents know that they can come to the county when they are in need, or, when they can be of help,” LoPresti said.
Requests for comment from the White House and the U.S. Department of Justice were not immediately returned.
San Francisco has had sanctuary laws on the books since 1989, according to Chiu’s office.
Some of Trump’s other recent executive orders that have been challenged in court include his order to repeal birthright citizenship, which two federal judges found unconstitutional, and his effort to reassign transgender women federal inmates to a men’s prison.
His plan to offer buyouts to members of the federal workforce was also halted by a federal judge last week.
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