2 Mass. sanctuary cities ask court to block Trump from defunding them while lawsuit proceeds
A pair of Boston-area cities asked a federal judge Tuesday to block the Trump administration from revoking their federal funding as it cracks down on 'sanctuary cities' over their immigration enforcement policies.
The cities of Somerville and Chelsea sued the administration in February as they faced the loss of millions of dollars in federal aid for their police departments, schools, street repairs and public services.
On Tuesday, the cities filed a preliminary injunction in U.S. District Court in Boston, seeking a judge's intervention after the Department of Homeland Security on Friday placed both cities on a list of communities it said are violating federal law by providing sanctuary to undocumented immigrants.
The department said the cities — along with 10 other Massachusetts cities and hundreds more across the country — must change their local policies to match the Trump administration's stance on immigration issues, or risk losing federal funding or contracts.
Somerville and Chelsea asked the judge to pause any attempted withdrawal of their funding while the ongoing lawsuit plays out.
Read more: Sanctuary or not, immigrant fears transcend borders in Chelsea, Revere
Somerville first identified itself as a sanctuary city in 1987, followed by Chelsea in 2007.
Like other proponents of sanctuary laws, they've argued that their policies are not only legal but beneficial to public safety as well.
'Victims and witnesses are less likely to report crimes if they know that local police are working in concert with federal immigration authorities. By avoiding that entanglement, sanctuary cities improve public safety and quality of life not just for immigrant residents, but for all residents and community members,' Lawyers for Civil Rights, the nonprofit legal group representing the cities, said in a statement Tuesday.
Or as Somerville Mayor Katjana Ballantyne put it: 'Our residents know that our community is safer when police focus on preventing crime rather than raiding the local sandwich shop.'
In many sanctuary cities, the local laws don't prevent police from assisting with serious criminal matters, such as guns, drugs and human trafficking.
Still, the Trump administration has accused the cities of providing safe harbor to dangerous offenders.
'These sanctuary city politicians are endangering Americans and our law enforcement in order to protect violent criminal illegal aliens,' U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in a statement Thursday accompanying the list's publication.
Somerville received roughly $19.4 million in federal funding last fiscal year to support roadway safety initiatives, homelessness prevention services, and efforts to reduce youth tobacco and alcohol consumption.
Chelsea's $14.5 million in federal funding last year went toward police equipment such as bulletproof vests, programs for drug treatment and enforcement, programs supporting crime victims and witnesses, the city's largest downtown reconstruction project in decades, and the school system, the city said in legal filings.
'Chelsea is a city built by immigrants, sustained by their contributions, and strengthened by our shared values of inclusion, justice, and resilience,' Chelsea City Manager Fidel Maltez said in statement Tuesday,
'The President cannot use federal funding as a weapon to force local governments to undermine public safety and participate in his mass deportation efforts,' Oren Sellstrom, the litigation director for Lawyers for Civil Rights and one of the cities' attorneys, said in a statement.
The future of Homeland Security's sanctuary cities list remains unclear. On Sunday, the list appeared to have been taken down after strong pushback from a national sheriffs organization that said some members were angered and confused to find their towns or counties included on an 'arbitrary' list.
'The list is being constantly reviewed and can be changed at any time and will be updated regularly,' a senior Homeland Security official said in response to a request for comment Monday.
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Read the original article on MassLive.
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