Another Federal Court Deals A Setback To Trump’s War On ‘Sanctuary Cities’
The Trump Administration's war on so-called "Sanctuary Cities" suffers yet another defeat in Court.
Late last week, a Federal Judge in San Francisco who has previously ruled against the Administration regarding its efforts to punish cities and localities that decline to cooperate with Federal immigration officials in rounding up undocumented immigrants:
SAN FRANCISCO — A U.S. judge in California struck down an immigration law Friday that the Trump administration has used to go after cities and states that limit cooperation with immigration officials.
The ruling by Judge William Orrick also directed the U.S. Department of Justice to give California $28 million that was withheld over the state’s immigration policies.
It was at least the third decision by a U.S. district court judge in recent months declaring the immigration law unconstitutional.
However, none of the three rulings immediately invalidated enforcement of the law nationwide. The law at issue forbids states and cities from blocking officials from reporting people’s immigration status to U.S. authorities.
Orrick’s ruling Friday in lawsuits by California and San Francisco may be the most significant yet because it applies to a major target of the administration’s opposition to sanctuary jurisdictions. Orrick forbid Attorney General Jeff Sessions from enforcing the immigration law against California or any of its cities or counties.
DOJ spokesman Devin O’Malley declined comment.
The Trump administration says sanctuary cities and states allow dangerous criminals back on the street.
San Francisco and other sanctuary cities counter that turning local police into immigration officers erodes the trust needed to get people to report local crimes.
Orrick said the immigration law “undermines existing state and local policies and strips local policy makers of the power to decide for themselves whether to communicate with” immigration officials. It also shifts a portion of immigration enforcement costs onto states, he said.
“California expresses the legitimate concern that entanglement with federal immigration enforcement erodes the trust that Latino and undocumented immigrant communities have in local law enforcement,” the judge said.
California Attorney General Xavier Becerra said the ruling was a victory.
“We will continue to stand up to the Trump administration’s attempts to force our law enforcement into changing its policies and practices in ways that that would make us less safe,” he said in a statement.
The administration cited the law in litigation filed against California in March that sought to block three state laws.
One of the laws prevents police from providing release dates and personal information of jail inmates — information administration officials say they need to safely remove dangerous people who are in the country illegally.
U.S. Judge John Mendez in Sacramento has allowed California to continue enforcing that law.
California could use Orrick’s ruling to ask Mendez to reject the administration’s claim that the state is violating the 1996 law, said David Levine, an expert in federal court procedure at the University of California, Hastings College of the Law.
More from the San Francisco Chronicle:
SAN FRANCISCO — A federal judge struck down an immigration law Friday that the Trump administration has used against cities and states that limit cooperation with immigration officials.
The ruling by Judge William Orrick also directed the U.S. Department of Justice to give California $28 million that was withheld over the state’s immigration policies.
It was at least the third decision by a U.S. district court judge in recent months declaring the immigration law unconstitutional.
The law at issue forbids states and cities from blocking officials from reporting people’s immigration status to U.S. authorities.
Orrick’s ruling Friday in lawsuits by California and San Francisco may be the most significant yet because it applies to a major target of the administration’s opposition to sanctuary jurisdictions. Orrick forbade Attorney General Jeff Sessions from enforcing the immigration law against California or any of its cities or counties.
DOJ spokesman Devin O’Malley declined comment.
The Trump administration says sanctuary cities and states allow dangerous criminals back on the street.
San Francisco and other sanctuary cities counter that turning local police into immigration officers erodes the trust needed to get people to report local crimes.
Orrick said the immigration law “undermines existing state and local policies and strips local policy makers of the power to decide for themselves whether to communicate with” immigration officials. It also shifts a portion of immigration enforcement costs onto states, he said.
“California expresses the legitimate concern that entanglement with federal immigration enforcement erodes the trust that Latino and undocumented immigrant communities have in local law enforcement,” the judge said.
California Attorney General Xavier Becerra said the ruling was a victory.
“We will continue to stand up to the Trump administration’s attempts to force our law enforcement into changing its policies and practices in ways that that would make us less safe,” he said in a statement.
This ruling is just the latest in a series of setbacks that the Trump Administration has suffered regarding its efforts to punish American cities, counties, and states that have refused to comply with Federal policies. Among the first of those rulings came from the same Judge who issued this most recent ruling, Federal District Court Judge William Orrick, an Obama appointee who had previously struck down a different Trump Administration effort to punish so-called ‘sanctuary cities.’ That case dealt with an Executive Order signed by President Trump that sought to deny funding for certain Federal funding for cities and localities that had adopted so-called ‘sanctuary city’ policies. That ruling granted the Plaintiffs, which included San Francisco as well as the nearby county of Santa Clara, a temporary injunction against enforcement of the Executive Order. Late last year, Judge Orrick put that injunction in a final form in a ruling that was harshly critical of the Administration’s efforts to force localities to comply with Federal law. Several months later, another Federal Judge in Illinois, ruling in a case that had been filed by the City of Chicago, issued a ruling that was largely identical to that issued by Judge Orrick. That ruling was subsequently upheld by the three-judge panel of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. More recently, a Federal Judge in Pennsylvania ruled that the Trump Administration policy was unconstitutional and a Federal Judge in Sacramento largely rejected a Justice Department challenge to a series of new California laws that seek to protect the sanctuary city policies of the state’s localities by enshrining them in state law and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against the Administration in the appeal of Judge Orrick’s rulings from last year.
At issue in Judge Orrick’s ruling, last week was a series of policies announced by Attorney General Jeff Sessions in July of 2017 that purported to cut off law enforcement related aid to cities and other localities unless they agreed to cooperate with Federal immigration authorities seeking to detain people alleged to be undocumented immigrants. In his order, Sessions stated that the Justice Department would cut off aid to any locality that failed to (1) comply with a Federal law barring localities from restricting communications between the Department of Homeland Security and ICE regarding targeted individuals, (2) that failed to allow DHS officials access to detention facilities to check the immigration status of any inmate, and (3) failed to give DHS two days notice before releasing anyone who has been the subject of a DHS detention request.
As Ilya Somin explains, Judge Orrick found all three of these conditions to be unconstitutional:
In a ruling on a lawsuit filed by the city of San Francisco and the state of California, Judge Orrick’s opinionconcludes that all three of these conditions are unconstitutional because only Congress, not the executive, has the power to impose conditions on federal grants to state governments. The executive cannot make up its own grant conditions after the fact, which is exactly what happened here. In addition, Orrick concludes that Section 1373 is in itself unconstitutional, because it violates the “anti-commandeering” requirements of the Tenth Amendment, which bar the federal government from conscripting state and local officials in efforts to enforce federal law.
As Judge Orrick explains, his conclusions are very similar to those of other federal judges who have rule on the same policy, in cases filed by the cities of Chicago and Philadelphia. Judge Orrick also follows these and otherfederal court decisions in ruling that Section 1373 is unconstitutional under the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Murphy v. NCAA, which invalidated a federal law barring states from “authorizing” sports gambling under state law. I explained in greater detail how the Murphy decision undermines Section 1373 and otherwise helps sanctuary cities here, here, and here.
Importantly, the Sessions policy and Section 1373 been repeatedly struck down by both Republican and Democratic-appointed federal judges. That is a sign of a growing bipartisan judicial consensus.
Judge Orrick previously issued a ruling striking down President Trump’s January 2017 executive order, which seeks to deny a much wider range of federal grants to sanctuary cities that fail to comply with Section 1373. His decision was recently largely upheld by the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
As Somin goes on to note, the Administration did win a small victory before Judge Orrick in that he held back on issuing a nationwide injunction in the case pending the resolution of the question of whether or not District Courts have the authority to issue such injunctions. While this has been a common practice in recent years, and most especially since the Trump Administration came to power and Courts were asked to rule on issues such as the travel ban, the military’s policy regarding transgender soldiers, and the Sanctuary Cities issues, it has also become something of a legally contentious issue for reasons that have nothing to do with the Trump Administration. Ordinarily, injunctions are generally limited to the parties actually before the Court, which follows from the general proposition that Courts generally only have jurisdiction over the parties before them. In recent years, it’s become more and more common for Federal Courts to issue injunctions that have a nationwide reach and, while there’s an argument to make in favor of this practice in appropriate cases, one which Somin himself makes, whether such injunctions are legitimate as a general issue is still unresolved at the appellate level. Other than this small victory, though, this was yet another loss for the Trump Administration on a controversial issue in the courts. I’m sure Donald doesn’t like that.
Given the recent confirmation of Justice Brett Kavanaugh and the likely shift of the Supreme Court in at least somewhat of a more rightward direction, the obvious question is what fate all these rulings might face if and when they make their way to the Supreme Court. While many might assume that a conservative majority would side that with the Federal Government, that may not end up being how things turn out. Defense of federalism and the powers of the states pursuant to the Tenth Amendment and other provisions of the Constitution. Given that, it is worth remembering that, in the years since conservative dominance on the Court has grown, the Justices have become more skeptical of Federal efforts to impose conditions on the states. As a general rule, the extent to which the Federal government can compel states to comply with the Federal law has been shaped, and limited, by a series of cases that stretch back more than thirty years. These cases include the 1987 Supreme Court ruling called South Dakota v. Dole and a series of cases that followed that that have made it harder for Congress and the Executive Branch to use the power of the purse and other powers to impose conditions on the states, as I’ve explained in the past:
In Dole, the Court dealt with a challenge by South Dakota and other states challenging a Federal law that withheld 5% of allocated Federal highway funds from states that declined to raise their drinking age, arguing that the statute was not a valid use of Congressional authority that interfered with state powers reserved by the Tenth Amendment. The Court ruled in favor of the Federal Government but also set forth a series of criteria that the Federal Government must meet in order to avoid violating the Tenth Amendment and other protections of the rights and powers of the states when using this method to force action by the states. New York v. United States, which was decided about five years after Dole, dealt with a Federal law governing the disposal of low levels of radioactive waste. One of the provisions of that law required states to “take title” to such waste and made them primarily responsible for its disposal, a provision which the Court found to be beyond the boundaries of both the Commerce Clause and the Tenth Amendment. Finally, about five years after New York, the Court issued a ruling in Printz v. United States that has stood for twenty years as the definitive ruling on the extent to which Federal law can be used to compel states to act. Printz dealt with provisions of the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, the so-called “Brady Bill.” One part of that bill required state and local law enforcement to conduct background checks for all gun purchases within their borders for an interim period until a Federal database that would conduct those checks on a more-or-less instant basis could be built, tested, and put into operation. The Supreme Court struck that provision down as unconstitutional under the Tenth Amendment in a decision written by Justice Scalia that relied heavily on both the criteria set forth in Dole for the criteria the Federal Government must meet to compel state’s to perform certain acts or pass certain laws and the holding in New York that more fully developed the limits on the Federal Government’s ability to force the states to act. One other decision, which Judge Orrick cites in his opinion is National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius, the 2011 case in which the Supreme Court largely upheld the Constitutional arguments against the Affordable Care Act. In one part of that decision, though, the Court struck down one provision of the PPACA that purported to use Federal power to force the states to expand Medicaid by threatening to withhold all of a state’s Medicaid funding if it declined to expand coverage as permitted under the PPACA. While there was not a solid majority supporting the reasoning for a decision in that part of the case, there was a majority in agreement with the result that the requirement that states expand the program or risk losing hundreds of millions of dollars or more in Medcaid funding was not permissible under either Article I or the Tenth Amendment.
What these cases stand for generally is the idea that, while there are some circumstances in which the Federal Government can use the power of the purse to compel state action in a given policy area, those areas are limited and there must be some conceivable nexus between the “punishment” being enacted by the Federal government for failure to comply and the policy that the Federal government is trying to force the states to adopt. In this cases and the others like it, the Courts have invariably found that the nexus here simply does not exist and that the Federal Government cannot withhold funding generally available to states and localities to do anything the Federal Government wants. This is especially true in an area such as this where local law enforcement is under no legal obligation to enforce Federal immigration laws,
Whether the Supreme Court follows these precedents remains to be seen, of course, but as I said it is worth remembering that this is one area where a more conservative Supreme Court could come back to bite the President.
Here’s the opinion:
San Francisco Et Al v. Sess… by on Scribd
San Francisco? It’s no surprise that they didn’t pick a judge from a more sane part of the country…
El Dennison ought to do as George Costanza, and just do the opposite of what his natural instincts tell him to.
OT…the market just closed, down 546.52 or 2.13%. This follows yesterdays plunge of 800+ points or just over 3%.
1,300 points in two days.
Dennison starts trade wars and runs up the deficit, so interest rates climb, and the market drops.
BEST.
ECONOMY.
IN.
HISTORY!!!
@Daryl and his brother Darryl:
In the real world, he’s going to have a hard time blaming Obama.
In Cheetoland, he won’t have to; everyone will assume so.
@Daryl and his brother Darryl:
OT: S&P back to where we were on Jan 4, 10 months of gains lost in two days.
We will see where we are tomorrow.
@Eric Florack:
The GDP of the San Francisco Bay Area is larger than most of the red states in this country. We could buy Wyoming with the loose change collected from between the seat cushions of BART trains. In fact, SF’s GDP is greater than that of 35 states.
In addition, it is beautiful, cultured, and just chock full of great food, great wine and great weed.
But sure, sane people live in ugly-ass towns full of rednecks drinking PBR. Nothing says ‘sane’ like failure, right?
@Bob@Youngstown: OT: S&P back to where we were on Jan 4, 10 months of gains lost in two days.
We will see where we are tomorrow.“
I think that what’s happening is that ‘the markets’ have decided that the trade war is actually happening (all hope dying), and that they are seeing the effects on the economy.
One of my friends has totally gone down the crazy tunnel and is convinced that “sanctuary cities” are going to suddenly explode in some Hispanic/White/Black race war. Keeps sending me stuff from YouTube. Sigh.
@Barry:
P.S. Just wait until the slithering chaos mess known as Brexit hits the fan. The DUP are threatening to vote against Theresa May’s proposed plan (which no one likes) and also threatening to vote against any plan which doesn’t treat Northern Ireland EXACTLY like the U.K. (The fact that NI doesn’t have the same laws at present as the U.K. in areas like abortion and gay rights is of course conveniently ignored.) Since the only intelligent solution to the whole GFA problem is to put the trading border at the Irish sea, this means the DUP is essentially pulling the plug on anything that isn’t chaotic no-plan.
The political players of this farrago have roughly two weeks to continue to snipe at each other until the EU finally gives up and decides they might as well go their own way. Which means total mess, no JIT, no Customs Union.
Once the first car company bolts to the EU, I suspect we’ll see the floodgates loose, along with a splendid crash in the UK stock market and reverberations ricocheting around the globe. I also expect the UK property bubble to collapse at this point.
@Barry: good thing trade wars are easy to win.
@Michael Reynolds:
First, if you buy Wyoming you buy its debt, if any. Careful about that.
Second, there are downsides to everything. I understand San Francisco has very expensive real estate, with high rents to match. An acquaintance who used to live there moved to Vegas with his husband a few years back. He can’t stop talking, still, about how much cheaper living expenses are.
There seem to be some benefits to the “Sanctuary City” set up. The police there seem to benefit in their investigations. Some people are given a second chance on some crimes, provided they are not violent or escapees. The courts can use this to help protect some innocent people. But the rules need to be applied to everyone, both ways; so that the regular citizens there should also receive this “Sanctuary”. So this program does seem to work in some ways. And some cities, though; have pushed back and withdrawn from the program.
Not everyone out there is enamored, excited, enchanted, and on board with this. I have heard complaints from some of the Black populations, and from the legal immigrants. And there are immigrant groups who oppose amnesty and people coming into the country illegally.
Watch: “What LA residents really think of LA as a sanctuary city” – very revealing, on differing opinions to this from the people who are affected by it: the law abiding citizens.
So if the people of a city somewhere are okay with it, fine. Just don’t force it on everyone. It won’t happen around here.
@Kathy:
We were actually in the UK, getting ready to tour southern France, the Spanish coast and the Algarve, looking to move there. Then we realized we had enough Hollywood stuff going on that we should move there. So I’m actively looking at homes in LA. I start my search parameters at a million. So, yes, California is expensive as hell. Take whatever you think a house should be worth – and add a million. It’s best if you’re surfing Zillow or Trulia to have a few drinks on-board.
But I write to you now from Midland, Texas – the wife has a gig – and we also went back to Austin for a look-see a few months ago. Austin’s where we met so we have some affection for it. But despite the fact that a move to Texas or Nevada or Florida would save me 100k per year, we still balked. If you believe in the free market you believe that it sets the value of things. The market thinks houses in the Hollywood Hills or Silver Lake should cost a fuckton and you know what? The market is right. If you can afford it. Big if.
California is expensive because California is worth it. California is California, while Nevada is just Nevada. And Texas is full of people so depraved they’d elect Ted Cruz. I’ve got a transgender kid and a Chinese kid, and I am grateful California exists as a powerful antidote to Red America. But it definitely helps to have money.
When the history of our times is written, the seperation and incarceration of children will be recorded. I hope that the people of the future will take note of the sanctuary cities as evidence that we, living in 2018, are not totally deserving of condemnation.
@Michael Reynolds:
Ok. I’m being serious. You should consider Asheville, NC if you are really open to a wide variety of locations and CA isn’t important for business reasons. Drop dead gorgeous. Good climate. Foody town; lots of NYC chef transplants. Plus I have cases of 2005 Pontet Canet. Reasonable flight access to Chicago, NYC, Wash, Atlanta. You can drive to gorgeous Atlantic Ocean resort areas. Relatively good cost of living if that matters. It’s a liberal city, if you catch my drift. The state’s finances are in order and it’s growing nicely. The only place I’ve been I might like as much is Seattle.
The biggest negative is the Chicago Blackhawks play in, well, Chicago.
@Daryl and his brother Darryl:
So the Fed raising rates was predictable and predicted. Tell us, business genius, how did you structure your investment portfolio in anticipation, and why. (This oughta be good). For bonus points, business genius (Snicker), who are the primary beneficiaries of current events in equities and fixed income markets, and why. No hand waving. Be specific.
@Guarneri: For a financial genius, you certainly don’t read the business newspapers. The raising of the rates has been predicted a long way ahead and it’s perfectly on schedule.
It’s the other bits of news (people worried about Italy causing blowback on Euro, China, inflated market, Trump’s stupid trade wars) together with the rates that has caused the sudden stampede.
At the moment, the people in the market who are still completely invested are the ones trying to get the last drops out of the milkshake (to mix metaphors) and will probably learn the hard way “Bulls make money. Bears make money. Hogs get slaughtered.” The prudent among us hedged a long time ago. I know I took my gains off the table several months previously and parked them in distributed non-correlated non-equities. Didn’t you?
Apropos of the market’s belly flop the last two days, we took a substantial (middle six-figure) sum off the table two and a half years ago and waited for either a) a bear market or b) for the Fed to start raising rates. Now that it has, we’re feeding money gradually into Treasuries. No stocks (U.S. or elsewhere) until there’s a substantial correction.
“The raising of the rates has been predicted a long way ahead and it’s perfectly on schedule.”
Do you even read before you write? That’s what I said. And by the way, I’d be wary of the financial press if I was you.
But let me ask the same question I asked Daryl. How did you structure your portfolio in anticipation? That is, to minimize downside risk and yet not just go to cash with no yield the last 5 years? It’s portfolio management 101, but I bet you don’t know.
Cranky
PS – a couple points in your answer indicate you don’t understand.
@Guarneri: There’s this thing called a bond….
You wouldn’t know, obviously.
“have become more skeptical of Federal efforts to impose conditions on the states” Finally this is coming to pass. We people down here have been complaining about that for a long time; back to the so-called “Reconstruction” era under the Republicans.
“I intend to make Georgia howl” General Sherman
“old times there are not forgotten”
@Guarneri:
I’m not a short-sighted, lack of vision, day-trader like you…my portfolio was structured long ago for the long haul, and I don’t make major changes for blips like the Dennison administration.
This too shall pass.
If this was actually about states’ rights you might have a point about Conservative Supreme Court leanings. Since it’s about towel heads and wet backs, I’m going to guess that supporting the administration is not going to be as much of a problem. Sorry.
@grumpy realist:
As I suspected, you are clueless about the issues. Do tell, what did you do about bond prices and interest rates. Let me give you two hints: duration, and hold to maturity.
Now run along, find a basic corpfin textbook, figure out what duration is and get back to us. Oh, and skip the financial press. I’m trying to help you.
You can always tell how Guarneri thinks Trump is doing – he sneaks back here. Then he disappears when he knows he’ll have to defend the indefensible immorality, amorality, imbecility and clownishness of his despicable cult leader.
I’ll say this for the departed Bung: he was utterly dishonest, but he at least had the spine to stand up for Dear Leader.
@Michael Reynolds:
Aside from the rare occasions when the government sets prices, the market will always do so. But this doesn’t mean the market is “free.” So things like subsidies and building restrictions can affect the price the market sets.
@Kathy:
I work in San Francisco. I was born here, and grew up in the suburbs north of here, and I now commute 60 miles to the city daily.
Rents? If you want your own place – a studio in most of the city is at least $1500/mo, 1br $2,500/mo, and 2br $4000-$5000. Varies from district to district but …. really expensive.
Buy a house? In a previously tough neighborhood $800k-$1 million might get you started. In a regular generic middle class type of neighborhood you probably have to have $1.5M- $2M to be in the game.
Tech money has generally been the cause of the overall increase.
Office building space lease costs in downtown is probably slowing but in general it is well over $60 per square foot, and in many cases about $80 per square foot.
@Guarneri:
+1
I dabble in real estate as my side hustle. Just bought a cabin in Asheville, my first piece of real estate that I can’t drive to on a moment’s notice. I’ve lived in Charleston, NYC area, and worked on campaigns in New England and Miami. Asheville is by far my favorite city on the east coast (and it’s not even on the coast!).
That said, if you want to go to a Carolina city for the food, Charleston is the place to go. Asheville’s good, but it ain’t no Chas.
@Daryl and his brother Darryl:
I’ve never day traded in my life, but nice pathetic try. I noticed you dodged the question; like grumpy, you really have no idea what you are talking about do you? So I ask the same question. Do you have the same simple minded equity vs fixed income paradigm as grumpy? Or do you know how to navigate through a rising rate environment while maximizing total portfolio return?
I know you don’t. It doesn’t make you a bad guy, it just means you don’t know what you are talking about. Let me know when you want some help.
@Neil Hudelson:
Yes, Charleston is great. It was a contender for us. I just hate the humidity of the low country. I get plenty of Florida in the winter months.
@Michael Reynolds:
See what happens when you try to be civil to the deranged? And your obsession with feeling you have won a debate at some no count blog, and thumbs up, is truly an indication of a childish and weak ego. Mental illness really. Carry on.
As opposed to bragging about supposed financial prowess at some no count blog to a bunch of anonymous strangers? Surely no childish and weak ego there, right? Mental illness indeed…
@Tyrell:
You left out the most important part of the line:
link
@Guarneri: Sayeth the man who quotes “news” from Russia Today as if it were anything more than a propaganda outlet….
Yup. REAALY up-to-date with reality. I think. Not.
(P.S. Overall we made 62% gains in a distributed and hedged portfolio in two years, sucker. Match that.)
@Guarneri:
Let’s be clear: we are not friends. You’re a Trumpie, an apologist for racists and misogynists. There is not, and there never will be, peace between me and people like you. You and your ilk have defiled the White House, degraded my country, and elevated hate. You can go fck yourself.
The solution to that is to incarcerate far less African Americans for minor crimes…
@An Interested Party: Everyone’s opinion should be considered concerning the “sanctuary city” deal instead of the politicians stuffing it down their throats. Why not let the citizens vote on it? Many citizens and city officials, including police, are opposed. If I live in a sanctuary city, am I going to have my parking tickets dismissed?
Also, let’s not forget that an illegal immigrant who had a violent criminal record and was deported four times ended up killing an innocent woman in San Francisco. See Kathryn Steinle tragedy. Who speaks for her, Governor Brown?
@Tyrell: “Why not let the citizens vote on it?” Well, one reason is that in FL where I live the legislature made it illegal for a municipality to declare itself as following the guidelines of a so-called ‘sanctuary city’. They can throw city officials in the pokey. In R-party states the result is what counts not the process of achieving it; that democracy stuff works at times and when it doesn’t – whish – out the window.
@Tyrell: THey do and it’s called an election. You should check it out. Happens every year.