Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel speaks in September against the Justice Department's targeting of so-called sanctuary cities. U.S. District Court Judge Harry Leinenweber declined DOJ requests to lift the nationwide aspect of the injunction he issued last month. | Matt Marton/AP Photo Judge won't limit order blocking Trump anti-sanctuary policy The federal court turns down a Justice Department request to prevent a Chicago ruling from applying nationwide.

A federal judge on Friday turned down the Justice Department’s request to dramatically scale back the reach of an injunction he’d issued against the Trump administration’s targeting of so-called sanctuary cities.

Last month, U.S. District Court Judge Harry Leinenweber granted the City of Chicago’s request for a nationwide block on the Justice Department’s plan to insist that cities and counties receiving public-safety grants allow immigration agents access to local jails and give local authorities advance notice when suspected illegal immigrants are about to be released from custody.


Justice Department lawyers asked Leinenweber to stay his order so that it would benefit only Chicago and would not stop application of the proposed new requirements to other jurisdictions applying for public-safety funding known as Byrne-JAG grants.

In a 17-page order issued Friday afternoon, Leinenweber, of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, declined to lift the nationwide aspect of the injunction. He said the conclusion he reached that the Justice Department’s policy appears to exceed its legal authority would not be affected by different factual scenarios in various places across the country.

“A nationwide injunction is necessary to provide complete relief from the likely constitutional violation at issue here,” the judge wrote. “The Attorney General’s authority to impose Byrne JAG conditions on the City will not differ from his authority to do so elsewhere. No additional evidence is needed to justify the nationwide scope of the injunction because the Attorney General’s authority does not vary state by state. … The rule of law is undermined where a court holds that the Attorney General is likely engaging in legally unauthorized conduct, but nevertheless allows that conduct in other jurisdictions across the country.”

Leinenweber noted that the Justice Department recently asked the Supreme Court to rein in the nationwide aspect of rulings blocking President Donald Trump’s travel ban, but that a majority of the justices — acting on a stay request and not issuing a final ruling in the cases — declined to perform that sort of geographic narrowing.

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“The Attorney General’s argument to stay the [anti-sanctuary policy] injunction parallels that adopted by the dissent but clearly rejected by the majority of the Supreme Court,” the judge wrote. “Thus, the Court is duty-bound to reject it here as well.”

Spokespeople for the Justice Department and for Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel did not immediately to respond to requests for comment.

The federal government has already appealed the injunction issued in the case to the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

On Friday night, the Justice Department asked the appeals court to grant the same stay Leinenweber denied. There was no immediate action from the 7th Circuit.