San Francisco, Santa Clara County say they will sue Trump over immigration

San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu announced Friday that the city will co-lead a lawsuit with Santa Clara County against what they described as President Donald Trump's "authoritarian" executive order targeting sanctuary cities for harboring immigrants who entered the U.S. illegally.

They also claim his administration is commandeering local law enforcement to cooperate with federal immigration enforcement in arresting and deporting those who have committed crimes.

The announcement came at the San Francisco City Hall, where Chiu said, "The federal actions make clear that cities like San Francisco will be defunded if we do not give up our local authority and autonomy and comply." The lawsuit was expected to be filed Friday.

This defunding would amount to billions of dollars, according to Chiu, and any defunding attempts "would be catastrophic to our city, to the services that we need to provide to our community and to our local economy."

Trump's executive order, titled "Protecting the American People Against Invasion," orders federal agencies to cut off funding to jurisdictions with sanctuary policies. Chiu said that to implement this executive order the U.S Department of Justice sent memos on Jan. 21 and Feb. 5 that instruct DOJ personnel to investigate, and civilly or criminally prosecute local officials in sanctuary jurisdictions that do not actively assist in immigration enforcement. 

Both Attorney General Pam Bondi and Trump's "border czar," Tom Homan, have said that local officials who hinder or interfere with immigration enforcement operations can be prosecuted under federal law.

"These are not idle threats," Chiu added.

Bondi said in a directive on Feb. 6 that the "Department of Justice will ensure that, consistent with law, 'sanctuary jurisdictions' do not receive access to Federal funds from the Department. While a list of the exact jurisdictions has not been made available, some 200 jurisdictions could be affected by this change. San Francisco has been a sanctuary city since 1989. Santa Clara County adopted a policy of not cooperating with ICE in 2011.

The state Legislature passed a law in 2017 that prohibits all city and county officials and law enforcement in California from assisting Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol in identifying, arresting and deporting those in the country illegally.

Trump's order states, "To ensure State and local law enforcement agencies across the United States can assist with the protection of the American people, the Secretary of Homeland Security shall, to the maximum extent permitted by law, and with the consent of State or local officials as appropriate, take appropriate action ... to authorize State and local law enforcement officials ... to perform the functions of immigration officers in relation to the investigation, apprehension, or detention of aliens in the United States under the direction and the supervision of the Secretary of Homeland Security. Such authorization shall be in addition to, rather than in place of, Federal performance of these duties."

The joint decision to file a lawsuit against the president came after Bondi's memos and the city attorney's office's observations of lawsuits her office filed on Thursday against Chicago, Cook County and Illinois, naming the governor and mayor specifically in their official capacities.

To Chiu, these actions "made it abundantly clear and abundantly real that this enforcement would happen."

He predicted the lawsuit in California will be joined by "a number of cities and counties," with more Bay Area localities expected to be on the plaintiffs' list.

Chiu said the lawsuit claims the administration violated the Constitution's 10th Amendment, the separation of powers doctrine, the spending clause, the due process clause and the Administrative Procedure Act.

"We will be asking the court to declare these actions unlawful and to prevent the Trump administration from enforcing the challenge portions of the executive orders and USDOJ memos," said Chiu.

"I want to be clear. The Trump administration is asserting a right it does not have. They're trying to tell us how to use our resources and to commandeer our local law enforcement. This is the federal government coercing local officials to bend to their will or face defunding or prosecution.

"And that is illegal or authoritarian. And last I checked, we still live in a democracy under the rule of law and the federal government needs to follow the law."

The White House and the Department of Justice were contacted by phone and email for comments.