The Trump administration escalated its showdown with Democratic-led states and cities over immigration enforcement on Monday, with the president signing executive orders that his press secretary said will “unleash America’s law enforcement to pursue criminals” and direct federal agencies to publish a list of “sanctuary cities” that do not cooperate with immigration agents.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt described the sanctuary city executive order in a morning news briefing as “focused on protecting American communities from criminal aliens.”
“This president is trying to simply enforce our nation’s immigration laws and is facing roadblock after roadblock,” Leavitt said. “… We’re going to continue to forge ahead with this mass deportation campaign.”
Local and state officials who obstruct the enforcement of federal immigration laws, according to the “Protecting American Communities from Criminal Aliens” order, engage in “a lawless insurrection against the supremacy of Federal law and the Federal Government’s obligation to defend the territorial sovereignty of the United States.”
Cities and states that find themselves on the Trump administration’s list of sanctuary jurisdictions could face a withdrawal of federal funding, as well as criminal and civil rights lawsuits, if they continue to resist Trump’s immigration agenda. They could even find themselves charged with violating the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.
The order instructs the Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi, in consultation with the secretary of Homeland Security, to “take appropriate action against” cities and states “favoring aliens over any groups of American citizens that are unlawful, preempted by Federal law.” It could also target 24 states, including California, and D.C. that provide some immigrants lower in-state tuition rates at public universities than out-of-state U.S. citizens.
“It’s quite simple,” Leavitt said in the briefing with border czar Tom Homan. “Obey the law, respect the law, and don’t obstruct federal immigration officials and law enforcement officials when they are simply trying to remove public safety threats from our nation’s communities.”
Trump is focusing on immigration — a key platform of his 2024 election campaign — as he approaches his 100th day in office. On Monday, the White House erected a line of placards around its lawn featuring mug shots of 100 people taken into custody by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
“ARRESTED” the signs said above a photograph and a list of the crimes they had allegedly committed, from murder to rape to distribution of fentanyl.
After the two executive orders are signed, Leavitt said, the president will have signed more than 140 executive orders in three months, a number that she described as “rapidly approaching the total number signed by the Biden administration over the course of four years in office.”
But the administration is already running into legal roadblocks as it seeks to penalize sanctuary cities.
Last week, a federal judge in California barred the Trump administration from denying or conditioning the use of federal funds to San Francisco and more than a dozen other municipalities that limit cooperation with federal immigration enforcement.
U.S. District Judge William Orrick said that parts of Trump’s executive orders were unconstitutional, and that the defendants are prohibited “from directly or indirectly taking any action to withhold, freeze, or condition federal funds.”
In an interview with The Times, California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta signaled California would fight Trump whenever he violated the law.
“We are completely committed to suing the president whenever we have standing and he’s violated the law, and we will,” Bonta told The Times in a conversation before the executive orders were announced. “We have super-majorities in each house of the Legislature. Every constitutional officer is a Democrat. They understand the need to protect California’s funding and future and rights.”
After the orders were announced, Bonta’s office said it planned to review them and take legal action if it is merited.
Los Angeles City Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martínez dismissed the president’s executive orders as “just another scare tactic.”
“Trump already tried this, and he failed because it’s unconstitutional,” Soto-Martínez said in a statement. “This is just another scare tactic to get us to follow his authoritarian agenda — but it’s not going to work.”
As a blue state with the largest population of undocumented immigrants in the U.S., California is a key player in the nation’s immigration showdown.
In 2018, during Trump’s first time in office, California legislators passed a pioneering sanctuary law — SB 54, also known as the California Values Act — that limits collaboration between local and federal authorities.
Angela Chan, a lawyer who helped write SB 54, said Trump’s executive orders seem like a reaction to the administration’s recent loss in the San Francisco case.
“It’s not a secret if a state or locality has a sanctuary law — it’s a law, so it’s public,” Chan said, noting that the website for the advocacy coalition ICE Out of California includes a list of cities and states with sanctuary policies. “I think this is just a little tantrum.”
Federal courts have already upheld the state’s sanctuary law. Chan said sanctuary jurisdictions can lean on that case law, which holds that states and localities have a right, under the 10th Amendment, to choose not to devote their resources toward assisting with federal immigration enforcement.
“The Trump administration is butting heads against those 10th Amendment protections,” Chan said. “You can make as many lists as you want, but what can you do to cities and counties on this list?”
Still, Chan acknowledged the stakes are high with the administration’s aim to force more collaboration between local and federal law enforcement. If they can convince sanctuary jurisdictions to enlist, they’d be much closer to fulfilling Trump’s goal of mass deportations.
While she wished California’s sanctuary law was stronger, Chan, now an attorney with the San Francisco public defender’s office, said she is grateful the state passed such a law during Trump’s first term.
“We have this solid 9th Circuit decision,” she said. “It’s how the law operates — through precedent — and we have this very strong precedent.”
After Trump’s November election victory, Gov. Gavin Newsom drafted a conceptual plan to help undocumented immigrants under threat of deportation and called a special legislative session to approve $25 million in additional state funds for possible litigation against the Trump administration.
“California has always followed federal law — as the courts continue to affirm — while standing proudly with immigrant families,” a spokesperson for Newsom’s office said. “We will continue to uphold the law and defend the people who call California home.”
The Los Angeles City Council also backed a “sanctuary city” law that forbids city employees and resources from being involved in federal immigration enforcement. The law would not prevent federal agents from carrying out mass deportations across Los Angeles, but was intended as a sign that City Hall backs the sprawling region’s immigrants.
Charis Kubrin, a criminology professor at UC Irvine, said the Trump administration is using a misguided approach to policy if it believes that crime will go down if it targets sanctuary cities and states.
Kubrin’s research found that SB 54 in California did not cause an increase in crime. Other studies have similarly found that immigrants commit crimes at lower rates than the native-born population.
“This becomes an effort to punish jurisdictions that go against the ideological values that the administration is pushing,” she said. “But it’s certainly not going to have any concrete impact on public safety, if you go by what the research says.”
Kubrin said the concept of sanctuary is fluid, with associated policies ranging from the purely symbolic to total prohibition of engagement by state and local governments in federal immigration enforcement.
“There’s a lot of nuance and gray there that’s not being addressed,” she said.
Last week, the Trump administration sued the city of Rochester, N.Y., arguing its sanctuary city policies violate the Constitution by impeding immigration enforcement. On Friday, FBI agents arrested Hannah Dugan, a county judge in Milwaukee, accusing her of obstructing an immigration arrest.
Asked if the Trump administration would lock up a federal judge or a Supreme Court justice, Leavitt said: “Anyone who is breaking the law or obstructing federal law enforcement officials from doing their jobs is putting theirselves at risk of being prosecuted. Absolutely.”