Group of Cities, Counties Sue Over Trump’s Bid to End Sanctuaries

ICE Philadelphia conducts a worksite enforcement operation at a car wash and arrests seven individuals in Philadelphia on Jan. 28, 2025. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement via Getty Images

As the Trump administration continues a broader effort to curb illegal immigration, a coalition of cities and counties filed a lawsuit on Feb. 7 challenging his executive order that forces sanctuary jurisdictions to cooperate with deportations.

The group of jurisdictions, led by San Francisco and Santa Clara County in California, filed its lawsuit in federal court, arguing that the federal government was illegally forcing local officials to participate in an illegal immigration crackdown with the threat of losing funding or facing prosecution for noncompliance.

Trump’s executive order threatened to pull federal funding to any sanctuary jurisdictions that do not cooperate with federal immigration officials. Local sanctuary laws often prevent local and state law enforcement agencies from cooperating with federal immigration officials and are designed to shield illegal immigrants from deportation.

“This is the federal government coercing local officials to bend to their will or face defunding or prosecution,” San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu said in a statement. “That is illegal and authoritarian.”

Filed in a San Francisco federal court, the lawsuit’s plaintiffs also include the local governments of Portland, Oregon; New Haven, Connecticut; and King County, Washington.

The coalition lawsuit is challenging Justice Department memos, including a Feb. 5 directive from Attorney General Pam Bondi instructing prosecutors to investigate local and state officials who stall or interfere with immigration enforcement.

“The days of flouting federal law without consequence ended the second President Trump was sworn back into office,” Justice Department spokesperson Gates McGavick said in a statement.

“Sanctuary jurisdictions are actively impeding law enforcement and prioritizing illegal aliens over their own citizens.”

The coalition filed its lawsuit one day after the Department of Justice (DOJ) sued both the city of Chicago and the state of Illinois, alleging that the two jurisdictions were interfering with the administration’s efforts against illegal immigration. The federal government sought a court order blocking sanctuary laws.

“The conduct of officials in Chicago and Illinois minimally enforcing—and oftentimes affirmatively thwarting—federal immigration laws over a period of years has resulted in countless criminals being released into Chicago who should have been held for immigration removal from the United States,” the DOJ’s complaint states.

The lawsuit targets Illinois’s Trust Act, the Way Forward Act, and Chicago’s Welcoming City ordinance, arguing they obstruct federal immigration enforcement.

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker has criticized the aggressive federal enforcement, warning of its chilling effect on workers who are in the United States unlawfully but have not committed other types of crimes. Speaking on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Jan. 26, Pritzker said that he supports the removal of violent criminals but emphasized the need to protect long-term residents who contribute positively to society.

“We need to get rid of the violent criminals, but we also need to protect people, at least the residents of Illinois and all across the nation, who are just doing what we hope that immigrants will do,” he said.

Tom Ozimek and Reuters contributed to this report.