A federal judge has blocked the Trump administration from cutting off federal funding to 34 “sanctuary cities” and counties that limit cooperation with federal immigration law enforcement, significantly expanding a previous order.
The order, issued on Friday by the San Francisco-based US district judge William Orrick, adds Los Angeles and Chicago, as well as Boston, Baltimore, Denver and Albuquerque, to cities that the administration is barred from denying funding.
Orrick, an Obama appointee, previously ruled it was unconstitutional for the Trump administration to freeze funding to local governments with “sanctuary” policies, limiting their cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice).
The April ruling came after cities including San Francisco, Sacramento, Minneapolis and Seattle sued the administration over what they claimed were illegal executive orders signed by Donald Trump in January and February that threatened to cut off funding if Democrat-controlled cities do not cooperate.
Cities and counties suing the administration contend that the executive orders amount to an abuse of power that violate the constitution. The administration argues that the federal government should not be forced to subsidize policies that thwart its control of immigration.
The administration has since ordered the national guard into Los Angeles and Washington DC, both cities with sanctuary designations, under a law-and-order mandate. On Friday, Trump said Chicago is likely the next target for efforts to crack down on crime, homelessness and illegal immigration.
“I think Chicago will be our next,” Trump told reporters at the White House, later adding: “And then we’ll help with New York.”
The number of people in immigration detention has soared by more than 50% since Trump’s inauguration, according to an Axios review published Saturday, reaching a record 60,000 immigrants in long-term detention or around 21,000 more than at the end of the Biden administration.
Separately, the US attorney general, Pam Bondi, last week issued fresh threats to 30 Democrat-led cities and states, including to the governors of California, Illinois and Minnesota, and the mayors of New York, Denver and Boston, to drop sanctuary policies.
Bondi said in the letter that their jurisdictions had been identified as those that engage “in sanctuary policies and practices that thwart federal immigration enforcement to the detriment of the interests of the United States”.
“This ends now,” Bondi wrote.
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Democrat leaders uniformly rejected the Trump administration’s assertion. Minnesota’s governor, Tim Walz, said in response that Bondi’s order was “some kind of misguided political agenda” that “is fundamentally inconsistent with our founding principles as a nation”.
The accelerating confrontation between the administration and Democratic-led jurisdictions comes as the Pentagon began ordering 2,000 national guard troops in Washington to carry firearms.
US officials told NBC News that the US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, had authorized national guard members who are supporting local law enforcement will probably carry weapons but troops assigned to city beautification roles would not.
The official said troops supporting the mission “to lower the crime rate in our nation’s capital will soon be on mission with their service-issued weapons, consistent with their mission and training”, according to the outlet.
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