A federal judge in San Francisco on Thursday blocked President Trump from withholding federal funds from ‘sanctuary cities.’
U.S. District Judge William Orrick ruled that withholding federal funds from sanctuary cities is unconstitutional.
President Trump issued a flurry of executive orders during his first term and again in his second term to withhold funds from jurisdictions that harbor illegal aliens.
Santa Clara, San Francisco, and 14 other cities and counties sued the Trump administration and moved for a preliminary injunction to block President Trump’s executive orders.
“Here we go again,” Judge Orrick wrote in his six-page order, criticizing President Trump’s second round of executive orders aimed at ending federal subsidies for sanctuary jurisdictions.
In 2017, Judge Orrick permanently blocked a similar executive order as part of Trump’s effort to defund sanctuary cities.
The judge said withholding funds from sanctuary jurisdictions is unconstitutional, violating the Fifth and Tenth Amendments as well as due process.
“Precedent in the Ninth Circuit and the orders of this court show why the Cities and Counties have established that they are likely to prevail on the merits of at least their separation of powers, Spending Clause, and Fifth and Tenth Amendment claims. The challenged sections in the 2025 Executive Orders and the Bondi Directive that order executive agencies to withhold, freeze, or condition federal funding apportioned to localities by Congress, violate the Constitution’s separation of powers principles and the Spending Clause, as explained by the Ninth Circuit in the earlier iteration of this case in 2018; they also violate the Fifth Amendment to the extent they are unconstitutionally vague and violate due process,” the judge wrote in his order.
Judge Orrick granted the preliminary injunction and enjoined all defendants, along with “their officers, agents, servants, employees, and attorneys, and any other persons who are in active concert or participation with them.”
“Defendants are instructed to provide written notice of this Order to all federal departments and agencies by April 28, 2025. The written notice shall instruct those agencies that they may not take steps to withhold from, freeze, or condition funds to the Cities and Counties based on the first sentence of Section 17 of Executive Order 14,159, Section 2(a)(ii) of Executive Order 14,218, or the Preamble and Section I of the February 5, 2025, Memorandum from the Attorney General entitled ‘Sanctuary Jurisdictions Directives,'” the judge said.
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