The lawsuit also challenges the requirement that these cities should inform DHS through a 48-hour notice before releasing any immigrant as identified by immigration officers.
The officials of California and San Francisco announced on Monday that they are suing the government for threatening to stop federal funding of sanctuary cities, the Los Angeles Times reported. The officials claimed that such threats are unconstitutional and infringe the basic rights of residents.
The Attorney General Xavier Becerra explicated that the local and state jurisdictions in California received $28 million in 2017 as part of grants for law enforcement, but this funding might be blocked in the future. Becerra termed Trump’s momentum against sanctuary cities as “bullying”.
“It’s low blow to our men and women who wear the badge, for the federal government to threaten their crime-fighting resources in order to force them to do the work of the federal government when it comes to immigration enforcement,” Becerra said.
He said that the state lawsuit has been filed and that the city of San Francisco had also filed a similar suit. In addition to challenging the threat to block funding, the lawsuit has complained about the requisite by the Department of Homeland Security where the cities should apprise of the release of persons identified by immigration officials at least 48 hours prior to release.
Speaking at the press conference, the San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera said, “This is a back-door attempt to coerce states and local governments to carry out federal immigration enforcement.”
Reportedly, the lawsuit mentions that these provisions are not endorsed by Congress and that these find no mention in any federal law.
“To the contrary, the new conditions are simply the latest attempt by the Trump Administration to coerce state and local jurisdictions into carrying out the federal government’s immigration enforcement priorities,” the lawsuit read, the LA Times reported.
Trump administration’s push to force sanctuary cities to share immigrant information and enforce federal immigration laws has been questioned by several quarters of lawmakers.