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MORE RESISTANCE TO PRESIDENT TRUMP’S ATTEMPT TO DEFUND SANCTUARY JURISDICTIONS 

City And County Of San Francisco Moves To Enjoin Executive Order.

On March 8, 2017, the City and County of San Francisco joined Santa Clara County in seeking a nationwide injunction against President Trump’s Executive Order that directed the Attorney General and Secretary of Homeland Security to defund “sanctuary jurisdictions.”  A copy of the motion can be found here.

San Francisco’s motion seeks an order enjoining the federal government from “taking any action under the Executive Order to declare San Francisco a ‘sanctuary jurisdiction’ that is ineligible for federal funds.”

San Francisco’s motion argues that the withdrawal of federal funding would be “devastating” to the City because “the City would be forced to reduce the number of first responders, suspend capital projects, and slash critical service programs.”

Santa Clara County’s motion for preliminary injunction is set for hearing on April 4, 2017. San Francisco’s motion is set for hearing on April 12, 2017. The Court has found the cases to be related and may combine the hearings.

Cities and Counties To File Amicus Briefs In Support Of Motions To Enjoin Executive Order.

The Court has set March 22, 2017, as the deadline for filing amicus briefs in the Santa Clara County case. We are drafting amicus brief on behalf of a number of cities and counties in support of the Santa Clara County and San Francisco motions. For more information, please contact one of the attorneys listed at the end of this e-alert.

Florida Court Finds That Executive Order Violates Tenth Amendment.

In response to President Trump’s Executive Order, Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez reversed county policy and “ordered county jails to comply with immigration detention requests.”

Last week, a Judge in the Circuit Court for Miami-Dade County found that the Executive Order violated the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The Judge found that the honoring of federal immigration detainers “conscripted” the local jail into holding an undocumented individual without legal authority. The Judge granted the individual’s writ of habeas corpus. The order can be found here.

The Judge’s Order concluded that the “price to be paid” for local jurisdictions to aid ICE “was determined, long ago, to be much too high.” The Order explained:

The price would be the subjugation of state and local governments, the reduction of those governments to mere satrapies of a central government of unlimited and illimitable power. The price would be the abandonment of the fundamental constitutional principle that, “the powers not delegated to the United Stated by the Constitution, nor prohibits by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, to the people.”

For further information, please contact Jonathan Holtzman or Linda Ross.