Judge blocks part of Trump's sanctuary cities executive order

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A federal judge on Tuesday blocked President Donald Trump's attempt to withhold funding from "sanctuary cities" that do not cooperate with USA immigration officials, saying the president has no authority to attach new conditions to federal spending.

However, US District Judge William Orrick III (pictured below) in San Francisco blocked the order on Tuesday, striking a fresh blow to the president's pledged clampdown on illegal immigration.

A federal judge placed a nationwide hold Tuesday on President Trump's order to strip funds from municipal governments that refuse to cooperate fully with immigration agents.

"Section 9 is particularly problematic as Congress has repeatedly, and frequently, declined to broadly condition federal funds or grants on compliance with Section 1373 or other federal immigration laws as the Executive Order purports to do".

Trump had in a January 25 order targeted broad categories of federal funding for sanctuary governments, prompting legal advocacy groups and some Democratic city and state governments to oppose the move in court.

Orrick called the order "broad" and "vague" and said the plaintiffs, the city of San Francisco and Santa Clara County, were likely to prevail in the case.

The plaintiffs argued during an April 14 hearing that it threatened billions of dollars in federal funding for each of them, making it hard to plan their budgets. Those who miss the deadline will risk losing federal funds tied the Byrne Justice Assistance Grant, a program that provides states, tribes and local governments with funding to support justice funding, including law enforcement, prosecution and courts. The county argued it was owed millions of dollars of federal funding every day and that its budgetary planning process had been thrown into disarray by the order.

He cited comments by the president and Attorney General Jeff Sessions as evidence of the order's scope and said the president himself had called it a "weapon" to use against recalcitrant cities. Since the order was issued three months ago, the government has said that a definition of sanctuary jurisdictions would be forthcoming.

The agency said in a news release that New York City's gang murders are "the predictable effect of the city's 'soft on crime' stance".

Judge Orrick reportedly made his ruling in defense of jurisdictions who would be hurt by Trump's executive order if it were signed into law. The administration suffered an earlier defeat when two federal judges suspended executive orders restricting travel from several Muslim-majority countries. The San Francisco and Santa Clara County lawsuits were the first to get a hearing before a judge.

Others are specifically frustrated with sanctuary cities.

Both Trump and Sessions have strongly criticized counties that refuse to hold immigrants in the USA illegally for possible deportation. San Francisco said it stands to lose at least $1.2 billion a year. In court, the government's lawyers suggested cities and towns were overreacting because the federal officials have not yet defined sanctuary cities or moved to withhold any funding from them. The administration then revised it, but the new version also is stalled in court.