A federal judge on Friday vastly expanded the scope of an order blocking the Trump administration from pulling federal funding for cities across the country over their policies that limit local law enforcement participation in immigration enforcement.
The order prohibited President Trump from denying funding to more than additional 30 cities and counties in far-flung corners of the country, including Los Angeles, Boston, Denver, Baltimore, Chicago and Columbus. The issue was their status as so-called sanctuary cities, with local laws that limit assistance to federal immigration agents.
It followed a previous order Judge William H. Orrick of the Federal District Court for the Northern District of Florida issued in April, barring the government from withholding the funding to 16 other cities and counties. The original set was heavily concentrated in California but also included several larger cities such as Seattle, Portland and Minneapolis.
Judge Orrick wrote on Friday that the government had not objected to the motion by the coalition of local governments that brought the lawsuit to widen its reach. He noted that the government had only disputed the legal reasoning of the original decision and was in the process of appealing it.
The funding at issue included federal grants that amounted to hundreds of millions of dollars. In their original complaint, the groups suing said they had been forced to consider putting on hold an array of capital projects and vital services, unsure of whether federal funding could dry up.
“The new plaintiffs have each alleged similar reliance on federal funding as the cities and counties and filed declarations showing similar harms to community health, welfare and social services and to their budgetary processes that depend on the regularly authorized grants of federal funding for a variety of critical needs,” Judge Orrick wrote.
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The post Judge Blocks Trump From Pulling Funding to 34 More ‘Sanctuary Cities’ appeared first on New York Times.
