SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - The Latest on a federal judge’s ruling that blocked a Trump administration order to withhold funding from sanctuary cities (all times local):
9 p.m.
The White House is blasting a federal judge’s decision Tuesday blocking President Trump’s attempt to withhold funding from “sanctuary cities” that do not cooperate with U.S. immigration officials. But they say they’re confident they’ll prevail in the Supreme Court.
White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer’s office slammed the decision in a statement as an “egregious overreach by a single, unelected district judge.”
He is accusing cities such as San Francisco of “putting the well-being of criminal aliens before the safety of our citizens” and says city officials who authored policies protecting people living in the country illegally “have the blood of dead Americans on their hands.”
He adds that the ruling is “a gift to the criminal gang and cartel element in our country” and claims it puts “thousands of innocent lives at risk.”
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5:30 p.m.
White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus says a judge’s ruling against a Trump administration order to withhold funding from sanctuary cities is another case of “the 9th Circuit going bananas.”
Priebus was referring to the 9th Circuit Court based in San Francisco, where judges have also ruled against Trump’s travel bans.
In a temporary ruling Tuesday, U.S. District Judge William Orrick ruled that Trump’s executive order targeting so-called sanctuary cities was overreaching. Orrick does not sit on the 9th Circuit, but his district is encompassed in the territory of the appeals court.
Priebus says the ruling will eventually be overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court, because it’s unreasonable that an agency couldn’t put restrictions on how money is spent.
The decision will stay in place while the lawsuit moves through the courts.
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5 p.m.
The Trump administration says a federal court ruling blocking its order cutting off funding to sanctuary cities does not stop it from enforcing immigration law.
The Department of Justice said Tuesday that it will continue to enforce a federal law that forbids communities from blocking reports on people’s immigration status to federal authorities. The department said it will also enforce existing conditions on federal grants that require compliance with that law.
U.S. District Judge William Orrick said in his ruling that the president cannot set new conditions on spending approved by Congress. He rejected the administration’s argument that the executive order applies only to a relatively small pot of money.
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4:20 p.m.
San Francisco’s city attorney says that President Donald Trump should stop using the death of a woman shot along a waterfront pier by a man who was in the country illegally to politicize the issue of “sanctuary cities.”
Kate Steinle was walking with her father in 2015 when Mexican native Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez picked up a loaded gun and fired it, killing her. He said the gun went off accidentally.
Lopez-Sanchez had been freed from a San Francisco jail despite a federal immigration request seeking his detainer for deportation. San Francisco routinely ignores such requests.
Trump blasted San Francisco and said Steinle’s death showed the need to secure the country’s borders.
A federal judge in San Francisco on Tuesday blocked a Trump administration order to withhold funding from sanctuary cities.
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3:50 p.m.
San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera has praised a ruling by a federal judge in San Francisco that blocked a Trump administration order to withhold funding from sanctuary cities.
Herrera said Tuesday the court halted the overreach of the president and attorney general who don’t understand the Constitution or chose to ignore it.
U.S. District Judge William Orrick issued the preliminary injunction earlier in the day in two lawsuits - one filed by the city of San Francisco, the other by Santa Clara County - against the executive order targeting communities that protect immigrants from deportation.
Herrera says billions of dollars that fund programs across the country were protected by taking the president to court
Santa Clara County Supervisor Cindy Chavez said the court’s ruling was a victory for people who would lose services if federal funding is cut off.
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1:15 p.m.
A federal judge in San Francisco has blocked a Trump administration order to withhold funding from communities that limit cooperation with U.S. immigration authorities.
U.S. District Judge William Orrick issued the temporary ruling Tuesday in a lawsuit over the executive order targeting so-called sanctuary cities. The decision will stay in place while the lawsuit moves through court.
The Republican president’s administration and two California governments that sued over the order disagreed about its scope.
San Francisco and Santa Clara County argued that it threatened billions of dollars in federal funding.
But an attorney for the Justice Department, Chad Readler, said at a recent court hearing that it applied to a limited set of grants.
Readler said less than $1 million was at stake nationally and possibly no San Francisco funding.
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