Seattle Is Sixth Local Government to Sue Trump Over Threats to Sanctuary Cities
Protestors rally against the Trump administration's immigration banĀ in downtown Seattle. Photo by Scott Lum via Flickr
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Just days after taking office, President Trump signed an executive order titled āEnhancing Public Safety in the Interior of the United States,ā which sought to pressure local governments to cooperate with a federal crackdown on immigration. It gives the U.S. attorney general the power to designate any state or local government a āsanctuary jurisdictionā and then to withhold certain federal funding from it.
This week, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that the government planned punitive actionsāmost notably the pulling of federal fundsāagainst states and cities with āsanctuaryā polices that prevent police officers and other public employees from inquiring about the immigration status of people they serve.
Many local governments have responded with defiance. The day that Trump signed his order, Jan. 25, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio quickly held a press conference in which he promised that the city would sue the Trump administration if it ever followed through on those threats. āThe minute any specific action to withhold funding were to occur, thatās when Zach Carter is in court the next hour,ā the mayor said, referring to the cityās chief lawyer.
But a growing list of other local governments have chosen not to wait to take legal action.
San Francisco filed the first lawsuit on Jan. 31. Next was the county of Santa Claraāhome to Silicon Valley. Chelsea and Lawrence, two cities in Massachusetts, followed, as well as the city of Richmond, California. This Wednesday, Seattle became the sixth local government to sue Trump.
āThe Executive Order has thrown the countyās ongoing budgeting process into chaos.ā
The lawsuits make it clear why these cities and counties are not waiting for Trump to make good on the punishments, and cite a range of constitutional violations.
āThe Executive Order has thrown the countyās ongoing budgeting process into chaos,ā Santa Clara countyās lawyers wrote in their suit, āforcing the county to choose whether to continue incurring hundreds of millions of dollars in costs that may never be reimbursed or discontinue providing basic safety-net services to its most vulnerable residents.ā About 15 percent of Santa Claraās $6 billion budget comes from the federal government, according to the lawsuit.
Santa Claraās complaint goes on to charge that the executive order violates the U.S. Constitution in several ways, primarily by attempting to coerce local governments to use their own resources to do federal work. The Supreme Court has consistently ruled that such legislation violates the 10th Amendment. For example, the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, signed by President Bill Clinton in 1993, would have compelled local law enforcement to do background checks on people seeking to buy weapons. Several county sheriffs sued, and in 1997 the Supreme Court ruled that the law violated the 10th Amendment because it āunambiguously required the states to enact or administer a Federal regulatory program.ā
Thatās just one of the many constitutional problems the lawsuits point to. The Seattle complaint, for example, charges that Trumpās executive order also contains violations of the Constitutionās spending clause, using āterms that are vague and not defined.ā
āThese cities and counties are forcing the Trump administration to say what they really mean.ā
Getting the administration to be specific is part of the point, says Lena Graber, a staff attorney with the Immigrant Legal Resource Center. āThe executive order could be interpreted in many different ways,ā she says. āThese cities and counties are forcing the Trump administration to say what they really mean.ā
Graber believes the lawsuits have a good chance of winning. āSanctuary policies are legal, and Trumpās executive order is not,ā she says.
So, would a victory in court invalidate the executive order, as happened with Trumpās two attempted travel bans?
Bill Ong Hing, one of nearly 300 legal scholars who signed a letter to the president opposing the executive order, says it may not be that simple. One difference is that the cases against the travel ban were class-action suits, but the ones against the executive order have specific sanctuary cities as individual plaintiffs.
āThere could be a decision thatās favorable to Santa Clara or San Francisco, and [the Trump administration] could still try to implement it in different parts of the country,ā Hing says. āItās only when thereās a decision by the Supreme Court that the law is thrown out.ā
āIt makes a real difference if you are an immigrant, to not feel like every local agency is a threat.ā
Yet Hing is confident that the issue will end up there. Even if none of the current cases make it to the Supreme Court, he believes, some other attempt to crack down on sanctuary cities will. He says the interest in withholding federal funding from sanctuary cities has been building in the Republican Party for years, citing similar legislation introduced by then-Sen. Jeff Sessions in 2015.
Meanwhile, Graber expects many more cities, counties, and states to sue the Trump administration to protect policies they believe are beneficial to their residents, both immigrants and non-immigrants.
āIt makes a real difference,ā she says, āif you are an immigrant, to not feel like every local agency is a threat to you and your family.ā
Editorās note: The original text of this article erroneously stated that the budget of Santa Clara county was about $6 million, when the correct figure is about $6 billion. This error has been corrected.
