Related Articles Trump’s own words used against him in sanctuary cities ruling

Judge appears baffled by Trump administration’s case against sanctuary jurisdictions

Survey: Most Californians support school “sanctuary safe zones” for undocumented immigrants

Judge stops Trump’s plan to punish sanctuary cities https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/857177434210304001

SAN FRANCISCO — In a case that put Santa Clara County and San Francisco at the center of a national immigration showdown, a federal judge Tuesday halted President Donald Trump’s executive order stripping so-called sanctuary cities and counties of federal funding.

The order dealt a blow to the Trump administration’s efforts to punish cities and counties for refusing to help deport undocumented immigrants — and marked the second time a judge has blocked one of Trump’s attempts to tighten the borders.

“I would say that the politics of fear suffered a major setback today,” said Santa Clara County Supervisor Dave Cortese, calling District Judge William H. Orrick’s ruling a “milestone.”

Related Articles Trump’s own words used against him in sanctuary cities ruling

Judge appears baffled by Trump administration’s case against sanctuary jurisdictions

Survey: Most Californians support school “sanctuary safe zones” for undocumented immigrants

A few things you might not know about sanctuary cities

Editorial: Santa Clara County 1, Donald Trump 0 in fight to keep local police out of immigration enforcement

How ‘liberal’ reputation of 9th Circuit Court of Appeals is overblown, scholars say With Santa Clara County and San Francisco’s landmark motion for a preliminary injunction approved, the section of the executive order applying to sanctuary jurisdictions will not go into effect until the court rules on the county’s Feb. 3 lawsuit against the administration.

Orrick said in his ruling that the counties have proved “they will suffer irreparable harm absent an injunction, and that the balance of harms and public interest weigh in their favor.”

The ruling — which came down less than two weeks after the case was argued in court — ensures Santa Clara County will retain the $1.7 billion in federal funding previously at stake under the executive order, which county officials said covers critical health and social services.

In the Bay Area, sanctuary counties include San Francisco, Santa Cruz and Alameda as well as cities such as Oakland and San Jose. Though many local jurisdictions have never officially designated themselves “sanctuaries,” they have said they will not cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement requirements that they turn over undocumented immigrants in their jail.

Flanked by community members holding signs that read, “We are here to stay,” county officials on Tuesday said the ruling builds on a national movement to protect the U.S. Constitution.

“Because of Judge Orricks’s ruling,” Cortese said, “millions of people across the county can continue to receive essential medical care, can continue to go to school, continue to be active members of their community without fear that their local governments are being forced to work against them, rather than for them.”

Chad Readler, the Trump administration’s acting assistant attorney general, said Santa Clara County and San Francisco were interpreting the executive order too broadly. The funding cutoff applies to three Justice Department and Homeland Security Department grants that require complying with a federal law that local governments not block officials from providing people’s immigration status, he said.

Readler said the order would affect less than $1 million in funding for Santa Clara County and possibly no money for San Francisco. Trump, he said, was using a “bully pulpit” to “encourage communities and states to comply with the law.

But in his ruling, Orrick said the executive order “by its plain language, attempts to reach all federal grants, not merely the three mentioned at the hearing.”

“The rest of the order is broader still, addressing all federal funding,” Orrick added. “And if there was doubt about the scope of the order, the president and attorney general have erased it with their public comments.”

It was unclear Tuesday if the Trump administration plans to appeal the decision. Ira Mehlman, a spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which favors stricter immigration enforcement, said the sanctuary policies that are in place in San Francisco and Santa Clara County are a threat to community safety and violate federal law.

“Withholding targeted federal funds from these scofflaw jurisdictions is a legitimate response on the part of the federal government and has been employed by previous administrations in other circumstances. Notwithstanding the judicial activism of Judge Orrick, FAIR is confident that the president’s executive order will ultimately be upheld by the courts,” Mehlman said in a statement.

Santa Clara County was the first in the nation to seek an injunction of this kind against the controversial executive order, according to county officials, a move that has catapulted the region to the forefront of a heated legal battle against the Trump administration. Many sanctuary jurisdictions have pledged to protect their undocumented immigrant populations despite potential consequences from the administration.

But an April 14 hearing at the federal courthouse revealed those threats were largely symbolic — federal attorneys confessed they had no idea how Trump’s executive order stripping sanctuary jurisdictions of federal funding would actually work.

They said the government at this point hasn’t identified any “sanctuary jurisdictions,” must less defined what the term means.

The admissions suggested that the Trump administration has done little so far to translate months of threatening words from the president and Attorney General Jeff Sessions into a real anti-sanctuary policy.

Orrick appeared to sense the ambiguity of the policy, at one point asking, “What would the purpose of the executive order be?”

The order also has led to lawsuits by Seattle; two Massachusetts cities, Lawrence and Chelsea; and a third San Francisco Bay Area government, the city of Richmond. The San Francisco and Santa Clara County suits were the first to get a hearing before a judge.

“This is not just for San Jose or Santa Clara, it’s for the whole country,” said Cecilia Chavez, an organizer with Silicon Valley De-Bug who was present for the hearing on the case in San Francisco earlier this month. “It’s amazing to know that families don’t have to fear that they’re going to be torn apart because they live in a sanctuary city, or that their funding is going to be taken away.”

A district judge last month suspended Trump’s travel ban hours before it was set to go into effect. The ban would have temporarily barred refugees from six Muslim-majority countries from entering the U.S. unless they already had visas. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals will hear the Trump administration’s arguments backing the travel ban May 15 in Seattle. Trump’s original travel ban, which sparked protests at airports nationwide, was blocked by a federal judge in February.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Reading this on your phone? Stay up to date with our new, free mobile app. Get it from the Apple app store or the Google Play store.