A federal judge issued an injunction against the Trump administration for trying to pull federal funding from local governments with sanctuary policies.
Sixteen cities and counties filed the lawsuit after President Donald Trump issued an executive order directing Attorney General Pam Bondi and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to end federal funding to sanctuary cities.
The lawsuit argued that the order violated the constitutional separation of powers by infringing on the power of the purse granted to Congress.
U.S. District Judge William Orrick sided with the cities and counties on Thursday and blocked the administration from enforcing the order on the litigant municipalities.
The lawsuit argued that the order violated the constitutional separation of powers by infringing on the power of the purse granted to Congress. It also claimed that the order violated the 10th Amendment by commanding local officials to enforce federal immigration law and was vague in relation to the Fifth Amendment.
Orrick agreed with the lawsuit and made a joke because he issued a similar ruling during Trump’s first term.
“Here we are again,” he said.
The Trump administration appealed that 2017 decision, but it was upheld by an appeals court.
The Justice Dept. argued that the municipalities had no standing because the administration had not yet pulled their federal funding, but Orrick said that was “essentially the same argument” made in the earlier lawsuit.
“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,” he wrote.
Orrick was nominated to the court by former President Barack Obama.
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