A federal judge ruled Thursday that the federal government can’t legally pull taxpayer funding from police departments simply because they refuse to cooperate with immigration officials to detain criminal aliens.

Or, put another way, federal officials are required to redistribute The People’s money to localities that intentionally harbor dangerous immigration fugitives.

Feel good about your Friday yet?

The New York Times explains:

The Justice Department cannot require that local police departments help immigration agents in order to receive federal funding, a federal judge has ruled. The ruling is a significant victory for local governments that have opposed the Trump administration’s stance on immigration and vowed to stay out of enforcement efforts. United States District Judge Manuel Real in Los Angeles issued a permanent, national injunction against the federal funding rules, giving the city an important win in a long-running legal battle with Attorney General Jeff Sessions and the White House. The ruling is “a complete victory,” Mike Feuer, the Los Angeles city attorney, said Thursday. “This is yet another dagger in the heart of the administration’s efforts to use federal funds as a weapon to make local jurisdictions complicit in its civil immigration enforcement policies.”

Yep. Because we wouldn’t want the public’s money being used to catch people who pose a threat and shouldn’t even be here in the first place or anything. Better to just send a blank check for a pile of “Get Out Of Jail Free” cards, instead.

The lawsuit was part of an ongoing court case launched by the state of California against the Trump administration’s immigration policies. The Trump administration does plan to appeal the ruling, of course.

But for now, the American public gets to keep shucking out millions in grants to local police departments in sanctuary cities like Los Angeles that don’t think twice about releasing dangerous illegal aliens back onto their streets.