The coalition is alleging that the Trump administration is unlawfully forcing their participation in illegal immigrant deportations.
As the Trump administration continues a broader effort to curb illegal immigration, a coalition of cities and counties filed a lawsuit on Feb. 7 challenging his executive order that forces sanctuary jurisdictions to cooperate with deportations.
The group of jurisdictions led by San Francisco and Santa Clara County in California, filed its lawsuit in federal court, arguing that the federal government was illegally forcing local officials to participate in an illegal immigration crackdown with the threat of losing funding or facing prosecution for noncompliance.
Trump’s executive order threatened to pull federal funding to any sanctuary jurisdictions that do not cooperate with federal immigration officials. Local sanctuary laws often prevent local and state law enforcement from cooperating with federal immigration officials and are designed to shield illegal immigrants from deportation.
“This is the federal government coercing local officials to bend to their will or face defunding or prosecution,” San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu said in a statement. “That is illegal and authoritarian.”
Filed in San Francisco federal court, the lawsuit’s plaintiffs also include local governments in Portland, Oregon; New Haven, Connecticut; and King County, Washington.
The coalition lawsuit targeted Justice Department memos, including a Feb. 5 document from Attorney General Pam Bondi instructing prosecutors to investigate local and state officials who stall or interfere with immigration enforcement.
“The days of flouting federal law without consequence ended the second President Trump was sworn back into office,” Justice Department spokesperson Gates McGavick said in a statement.
“Sanctuary jurisdictions are actively impeding law enforcement and prioritizing illegal aliens over their own citizens,” he added.
“The conduct of officials in Chicago and Illinois minimally enforcing—and oftentimes affirmatively thwarting—federal immigration laws over a period of years has resulted in countless criminals being released into Chicago who should have been held for immigration removal from the United States,” the Justice Department’s complaint states.
The lawsuit targets Illinois’s Trust Act, the Way Forward Act, and Chicago’s Welcoming City ordinance, arguing they obstruct federal immigration enforcement.
“We need to get rid of the violent criminals, but we also need to protect people, at least the residents of Illinois and all across the nation, who are just doing what we hope that immigrants will do,” he said.
Tom Ozimek and Reuters contributed to this report.
