Judges weigh scope of Trump sanctuary cities order
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SAN FRANCISCO — A federal appeals court on Wednesday scrutinized whether President Donald Trump’s executive order to withhold funding from so-called “sanctuary cities” threatened hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding to two California counties or potentially less than a million dollars as the administration claims.
Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Chief Judge Sidney Thomas asked what the court was to make of statements by Trump and his administration that the president wants to withhold money from sanctuary cities. Thomas and two other appellate judges — Ronald Gould and Ferdinand Fernandez — will decide whether a lower court judge was right to permanently block the executive order. They did not immediately rule.
Thomas also questioned whether the order would be constitutional if it applied to all types of funding as a lower court judge found.
U.S. Department of Justice attorney Chad Readler said the order was much narrower, noting that it referred specifically to the DOJ and U.S. Department of Homeland Security and not to other cabinet agencies that oversee transportation, Medicaid, or other funds. Readler has previously said the order applied to only three Justice Department and Homeland Security grants that would affect less than $1 million for Santa Clara and possibly no money for San Francisco — the two counties that sued to block it.
