San Francisco sues to block Trump order denying funds to sanctuary cities
The city of San Francisco on Tuesday filed a federal lawsuit seeking to block President Trump’s executive order that withholds federal grant money to sanctuary cities that don’t cooperate with federal immigration enforcement.
San Francisco’s city attorney, Dennis Herrera, said at a news conference that the executive order was unconstitutional because it “tries to turn city and state employees into federal immigration enforcers.” The New York Times, the San Francisco Chronicle and Law.com (sub. req.) have stories.
The intent, Herrera said, is to send a message to Trump that he’s “not an emperor who rules by fiat.”
According to the suit (PDF), San Francisco could lose more than $1 billion in federal funds as a result of the order.
The suit seeks a declaration that the executive order violates the Tenth Amendment. Trump’s order, the suit says, “strikes at the heart of established principles of federalism and violates the United States Constitution.”
The 10th Amendment provides that “the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.”
The suit says that San Francisco’s sanctuary cities policy makes San Francisco safer because immigrants who are in the country illegally feel safe when reporting crimes, makes San Francisco healthier because all its residents can access public health programs, and makes San Francisco socially and economically stronger because all children can attend school.
