With California and the city of San Francisco join Chicago in legal fights with the Justice Department over their sanctuary city policies, a showdown in court seems likely in the near future.
Earlier this week, California filed its suit in federal court against Attorney General Jeff Sessions and the Justice Department, making similar arguments found in the two other legal actions.
California Attorney General Xavier Becerra (left) claims his state will be denied $28 million in Justice Department grants from the federal Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant (or JAG) program unless it violates constitutional provisions.“The [Trump] Administration has threatened to withhold congressionally appropriated federal funds unless the State and local jurisdictions acquiesce to the President’s immigration enforcement demands. This is unconstitutional and should be halted,” Becerra said in the suit.
The city of San Francisco has filed its second sanctuary city lawsuit against the Trump Administration, claiming that it will lose $1.5 million in JAG grant funds, and it is coordinating its efforts with Becarra’s office.
On August 7, Edward Siskel, Chicago’s corporate counsel, sued Sessions in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois about new conditions placed on a Justice Department grant application for the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant. The grant to Chicago last year was for $2.33 million for funds that help pay for police equipment.
The Chicago lawsuit, which is similar to the California and San Francisco filings, claims the Justice Department stipulations about the JAG grants violate various constitutional rights.
“These conditions are inconsistent with the Byrne JAG statute itself, with the limitations imposed by the Constitution’s Spending Clause and the Fourth Amendment, and with basic separation of powers principles. Compliance with the conditions would require Chicago to violate Illinois law. And it would undermine public safety and effective policing in the City and upend Chicago’s Welcoming City policy,” the city said in the lawsuit.
On July 25, Sessions announced the new conditions related to the Byrne JAG grant. “From now on, the Department will only provide Byrne JAG grants to cities and states that comply with federal law, allow federal immigration access to detention facilities, and provide 48 hours notice before they release an illegal alien wanted by federal authorities. This is consistent with long-established cooperative principles among law enforcement agencies,” Sessions said.
The lawsuits stem from Trump sanctuary cities policies that started with an executive order in January that was later enjoined in County of Santa Clara v. Trump. In that federal court in California, on April 25, U.S. District Judge William H. Orrick said only Congress, not the President or other Executive Branch officials, can impose new conditions on how federal money is handed out in grants. Orrick then imposed a national injunction against the Trump executive order. (On July 20, the Trump administration failed in an attempt to dismiss the case.)
Orrick said the order’s wording and the Trump administration’s public comments convinced him that the order was intended to allow the federal government to withhold all funds from jurisdictions that didn’t honor detainers.
In his most-recent comments about the lawsuits, and particularly the Chicago lawsuit, Sessions has been critical of the leaders suing him and the Justice Department.
“Rather than acknowledge soaring murder counts or the heartbreaking stories told by victims’ families, Chicago’s mayor has chosen to sue the federal government,” Sessions remarked at a public appearance in Miami on Wednesday. “For the sake of their city, Chicago’s leaders need to recommit to policies that punish criminals instead of protecting them. They need to protect their citizens and not the criminals.”
