San Francisco celebrates after "sanctuary city" legal victory
SAN FRANCISCO -- President Trump took to Twitter, hours before dawn, to blast a federal judge's decision that blocked his executive order on "sanctuary cities" -- cities that don't cooperate fully with federal immigration enforcement. "See you in the Supreme Court," Mr. Trump tweeted.
Greeting immigrants at San Francisco's City Hall on Wednesday, Mayor Ed Lee celebrated the city's legal victory blocking at least temporarily, Mr. Trump's efforts to punish sanctuary cities.
"Now we can start doing our budget like normal," Lee told CBS News.
Lee celebrated the city's legal victory blocking -- at least temporarily -- Mr. Trump's efforts to punish sanctuary cities.
In an executive order, Mr. Trump threatened to strip all federal funds from any local government that refused to help immigration police round up undocumented immigrants.
"Block funding for sanctuary cities. We block the funding. No more funding," Mr. Trump said on the campaign trail.
"The court ruled, those words have unconstitutional consequences," said attorney Louise Renne, who filed the brief supporting San Francisco's lawsuit.
The administration can't simply stop giving federal money to these cities, Renne explained, because it is Congress that provides the funds, not the president.
"The president doesn't have the power to take away those federal funds," Renne said.
Potentially, hundreds of billions of dollars were at stake for more than 118 sanctuary cities and regions.
In Santa Clara county, it would be a budget breaker, with the county estimating it could lose $4-5 million a day on average.
But in Florida's heavily immigrant Miami-Dade, county commissioners were so worried about losing funds, they voted to fully cooperate with immigration authorities, rather than risk losing the federal money.
On Twitter, Mr. Trump vowed to fight the judge's order all the way to the Supreme Court. He also threatened to break up the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which has blocked two of his previous immigration orders.
