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Judge blocks Trump’s bid to withhold funds from sanctuary cities

WASHINGTON — A judge in San Francisco has temporarily blocked US President Donald Trump’s efforts to starve localities of federal funds when they limit their cooperation with immigration enforcement, in yet another legal setback for the White House.

A woman holding a sign at a rally outside City Hall in San Francisco on Tuesday. San Francisco estimated that it stood to lose more than US$1 billion (S$1.4 billion) in federal funding as a result of Mr Trump’s executive order. Photo: AP

A woman holding a sign at a rally outside City Hall in San Francisco on Tuesday. San Francisco estimated that it stood to lose more than US$1 billion (S$1.4 billion) in federal funding as a result of Mr Trump’s executive order. Photo: AP

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WASHINGTON — A judge in San Francisco has temporarily blocked US President Donald Trump’s efforts to starve localities of federal funds when they limit their cooperation with immigration enforcement, in yet another legal setback for the White House.

Meanwhile, the administration has also signalled that it may be willing to wait until September or possibly next year to secure federal funding for a controversial border wall, one of Mr Trump’s key campaign promises. The backing down could make it possible for Congress to finish work on spending legislation in time to avoid a government shutdown this weekend.

The judge, William Orrick of a District Court, said on Tuesday that the President had overstepped his powers with his January executive order on immigration by tying billions of dollars in federal funding to immigration enforcement. Mr Orrick said only Congress could place such conditions on spending.

The ruling, which applies nationwide, was another judicial setback for the Trump administration, which has now seen three immigration orders stopped by federal courts in its first 100 days.

Though Justice Department lawyers argued in the case that the government did not intend to withhold significant amounts of money, the judge noted that the President and Attorney General Jeff Sessions had suggested the punishment could be far greater.

“If there was doubt about the scope of the order, the President and Attorney General have erased it with their public comments,” wrote Mr Orrick.

While the order is only a temporary injunction until the judge issues a broader ruling on the executive order’s constitutionality, he strongly signalled that San Francisco and Santa Clara County, the plaintiffs in the case, were likely to win a permanent victory.

It was also an early verdict on the question of whether the White House can coerce cities and counties into helping federal immigration agents detain and deport immigrants who are not authorised to be in the country.

Mr Trump has criticised judges who have ruled against him, and late Tuesday night the White House released a statement saying: “Once again, a single district judge — this time in San Francisco — has ignored federal immigration law to set a new immigration policy for the entire country.”

Exactly what makes a city or county a sanctuary is a matter of interpretation, but most that present themselves as sanctuaries, including New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Houston, limit how much they cooperate with federal immigration authorities, often by refusing to turn over unauthorised immigrants from local jails except under certain conditions, or by preventing local police officers from asking about immigration status.

In San Francisco’s case, the city argued that the executive order violated the Constitution by essentially trying to commandeer state and local officials to enforce federal immigration law. In practical terms, San Francisco’s filing said, forcing the city to cooperate with federal immigration agents would threaten public safety by breaking trust between local authorities and immigrants, who the city argued would become less likely to report crimes or serve as witnesses.

The city estimated that it stood to lose more than US$1 billion (S$1.4 billion) in federal funding as a result of the executive order. Santa Clara said about US$1.7 billion, or more than a third of its revenue, was at risk.

“This is why we have courts — to halt the overreach of a president and an attorney general who either don’t understand the Constitution or chose to ignore it,” said Mr Dennis Herrera, the San Francisco city attorney, in a statement. “Because San Francisco took this president to court, we’ve been able to protect billions of dollars that fund lifesaving programmes across this country.”

During his campaign and since taking office, Mr Trump has repeatedly attacked sanctuary cities as harbouring lawbreakers. Mr Trump and Mr Sessions have seemed particularly galled by San Francisco’s policies, pointing multiple times to the killing of Kathryn Steinle, who was shot in San Francisco in 2015 by an immigrant with a record of multiple deportations.

“(Sanctuary cities) breed crime; there’s a lot of problems,” Mr Trump told Fox News in February. “If we have to, we’ll defund. We give tremendous amounts of money to California — California in many ways is out of control, as you know.”

Meanwhile, explaining the administration’s shift in rhetoric on the building of a wall at the border with Mexico, the President’s Counsellor Kellyanne Conway said on Fox News on Tuesday that “building that wall and having it funded remains an important priority to him (Mr Trump) but we also know that can happen later this year and into next year, and in the interim you see other smart technology and other resources and tools being used toward border security”.

Mr Trump told a group of conservative journalists gathered at the White House on Monday that he could put off until September asking Congress to include the money in the federal Budget. That could remove, at least for now, one of the biggest deal-breakers he has inserted into talks to pass a Bill this week that would finance the government through September, the end of the fiscal year.

Democrats, whose votes will be needed to help pass the spending plan, hope he will blink to avoid an embarrassing milestone for a new president trying to prove he can govern. A partial shutdown would start on Saturday, Mr Trump’s 100th day in office.

“We feel very confident the government’s not going to shut down,” said White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer on Monday, although he said he would not guarantee it. He also would not say whether the President was willing to shut the government down over funding for the border wall.

Right now, each side is dug in, and as Budget talks intensify, Mr Trump is also pushing House Republicans to restart work on an Obamacare repeal-and-replace Bill after the last one collapsed in March when conservatives walked away.

He is also planning to announce at least the broad parameters of a tax overhaul shortly that has elements already drawing the opposition of Democrats, including likely tax cuts for corporations and high-earning people.

“I wouldn’t risk a trillion-dollar funding Bill for a US$3 billion wall,” Representative Tom Cole, the Oklahoma Republican who sits on the House appropriations and Budget committees, told MSNBC on Monday. “There’s another way, another time to get this.” AGENCIES

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