Seattle Sues Over Sanctuary Cities EO

Steven D. Schwinn, John Marshall Law School

Seattle sued the Trump Administration this week over President Trump's "sanctuary cities" executive order. Seattle's move follows San Francisco's earlier suit and AG Sessions's speech this week on how he intends to enforce the EO.

We posted earlier on the EO here, on San Francisco's suit here, and on Section 1373's constitutionality here.

Like San Francisco, Seattle alleges that it's already complying with Section 1373 (because that section doesn't "impose an affirmative obligation to collect the citizenship and immigration data of its residents, or to provide such data to federal officials"), and that Section 1373 is unconstitutional if it requires anything more.

As to the constitutionality of Section 1373, Seattle contends that it violates the anti-commandeering principle in violation of Printz, that it turns pressure into compulsion in violation of NFIB, and that it contains only vague conditions on federal spending, unrelated to the underlying federal program.

Seattle's suit assumes that the EO threatens all federal funding for failure to comply with Section 1373--an assumption that seems supported by the plain language of the EO. AG Sessions's speech this week did very little (if anything) to qualify that assumption and to clarify the EO's reach.