District Judge Permanently Enjoins Trump's Sanctuary Cities EO

Judge William H. Orrick (N.D.Cal.) granted summary judgment for the plaintiffs and issued a nationwide permanent injunction against the defunding and enforcement provisions of President Trump's sanctuary cities executive order.

The ruling deals a serious blow to the President and his efforts to rein in sanctuary cities. This ruling goes to the EO itself, not AG Sessions's interpretation and enforcement of the EO, as the more recent temporary injunctions did. We posted most recently on the case in Philadelphia here.

Judge Orrick noted that nothing had changed from his earlier temporary injunction. He summarized his ruling this way:

The Constitution vests the spending powers in Congress, not the President, so the Executive Order cannot constitutionally place new conditions on federal funds. Further, the Tenth Amendment requires that conditions on federal funds be unambiguous and timely made; that they bear some relation to the funds at issue; and that they not be unduly coercive. Federal funding that bears no meaningful relationship to immigration enforcement cannot be threatened merely because a jurisdiction chooses an immigration enforcement strategy of which the President disapproves. Because the Executive Order violates the separation of powers doctrine and deprives the Counties of their Tenth and Fifth Amendment rights, I GRANT the Counties' motions for summary judgment and permanently enjoin the defunding and enforcement provisions of Section 9(a).

Recall that Section 9(a) says that "[i]n furtherance of [the policy to ensure that states and their subdivisions comply with 8 U.S.C. Sec. 1373], the [AG] and the Secretary [of Homeland Security] . . . shall ensure that jurisdictions that willfully refuse to comply with 8 U.S.C. Sec. 1373 (sanctuary jurisdictions) are not eligible to receive Federal grants, except as deemed necessary for law enforcement purposes . . . ." Importantly, the EO didn't specify which federal grants were at risk; it apparently applied to all federal grants.

AG Sessions tried to restrict the EO to JAG/Byrne grants from the Justice Department, but Judge Orrick had nothing of it: "The AG Memorandum not only provides an implausible interpretation of Section 9(a) but is functionally an 'illusory promise' because it does not amend Section 9(a) and does not bind the Executive Branch. It does not change the plain meaning of the Executive Order."

Judge Orrick said that a nationwide injunction was appropriate "[b]ecause Section 9(a) is unconstitutional on its face, and not simply in its application to the plaintiffs here . . . ."