Los Angeles (CNN) When the Trump administration declared war on California with a lawsuit challenging sanctuary state policies this week, it played right into the hands of Kevin de León -- and virtually every other Golden State Democrat running for higher office.

There is nothing that de León, the state Senate leader who is challenging Sen. Dianne Feinstein, relishes more than a fight with President Donald Trump -- in this case, on a law that he authored making California a "sanctuary state."

"They are angry and they're upset, because we won't participate with them tearing apart honest, hard-working families," de León said Wednesday in a telephone interview. He argued that Senate Bill 54, one of the laws being challenged, did not in any way prevent federal immigration agents from doing their job, but does prevent them from entering sensitive spaces like hospitals, churches, courthouses and public schools.

"If they have a judicial warrant they may move forward," de León said. "But we don't want them raiding schools and churches. We don't want them going to emergency room centers, which they did in the state of Texas, where they pulled out a woman who was there for chemotherapy. That just demonstrates the cruelness and inhumanity of an administration that one would expect from a rogue nation, not the greatest nation."

With the administration now suing California over parts of three "sanctuary" laws that are intended to protect undocumented immigrants from federal immigration officials, de León noted that he'd directed former US Attorney Eric Holder -- who helped craft the initial bill -- to draft an amicus brief in response to the lawsuit arguing that the state is on solid constitutional ground.

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