Latest news with #2025ExecutiveOrders
Yahoo
24-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Judge blocks Trump bid to halt federal funding for sanctuary cities
A federal judge in California issued an injunction Thursday blocking President Donald Trump's efforts to halt federal funds from going to several cities and counties considered sanctuary jurisdictions. 'The challenged sections in the 2025 Executive Orders and the Bondi Directive that order executive agencies to withhold, freeze, or condition federal funding apportioned to localities by Congress, violate the Constitution's separation of powers principles and the Spending Clause,' U.S. District Judge William Orrick said in his ruling. 'They also violate the Fifth Amendment to the extent they are unconstitutionally vague and violate due process,' while Trump's EOs "violate the Tenth Amendment because they impose coercive condition intended to commandeer local officials into enforcing federal immigration practices and law." The White House and Justice Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Follow live politics coverage here The Trump executive orders and a related directive from U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi had been challenged by the city of San Francisco and 15 other cities and counties from across the country. Orrick had blocked a similar effort by Trump during his first term in office, finding that his executive order was "unconstitutional" and that the plaintiffs "faced irreparable harm absent an injunction." "Here we are again," the judge wrote. The Justice Department appealed Orrick's earlier decision in 2017, but his ruling was upheld by the appeals court. A different federal appeals court, however, ruled in a separate suit that the Trump administration can indeed withhold 'grants' to sanctuary cities. The issue was going to be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2021, but the Biden Justice Department dropped the appeal and the matter was dismissed. Sanctuary cities or states are not official terms - the labels refer to a state, city, county or municipality that has enacted laws that either explicitly or effectively prevent or limit local officials from cooperating with federal immigration authorities. In the current case, the judge noted the Justice Department had argued the plaintiffs' claims are premature 'because the 2025 Executive Orders and the Bondi Directive merely provide guidance for executive agencies reviewing federal funding to sanctuary jurisdictions, and because the Cities and Counties have not yet suffered a loss of funds.' "This is essentially the same argument it made in 2017," Orrick wrote, while the plaintiffs' claims in the new case appear even more persuasive now. The cities and counties' 'well-founded fear of enforcement is even stronger than it was in 2017," the judge wrote, and it stems from Trump's executive orders, Bondi's directive and "numerous directives from executive agencies ordering the withholding of funds to localities like the plaintiffs." He also pointed to "legal action that the Government has already initiated against sanctuary jurisdictions in Illinois and New York, in addition to recent statements from high ranking government officials and the litigation over these issues in the first Trump administration.' Orrick said the cities and counties had also shown "a likelihood of irreparable harm." "The threat to withhold funding causes them irreparable injury in the form of budgetary uncertainty, deprivation of constitutional rights, and undermining trust between the Cities and Counties and the communities they serve," he wrote. This article was originally published on
NBC News
24-04-2025
- Politics
- NBC News
Judge blocks Trump bid to halt federal funding for sanctuary cities
A federal judge in California issued an injunction Thursday blocking President Donald Trump's efforts to halt federal funds from going to several cities and counties considered sanctuary jurisdictions. 'The challenged sections in the 2025 Executive Orders and the Bondi Directive that order executive agencies to withhold, freeze, or condition federal funding apportioned to localities by Congress, violate the Constitution's separation of powers principles and the Spending Clause,' U.S. District Judge William Orrick said in his ruling. 'They also violate the Fifth Amendment to the extent they are unconstitutionally vague and violate due process,' while Trump's EOs "violate the Tenth Amendment because they impose coercive condition intended to commandeer local officials into enforcing federal immigration practices and law." The White House and Justice Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The Trump executive orders and a related directive from U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi had been challenged by the city of San Francisco and 15 other cities and counties from across the country. Orrick had blocked a similar effort by Trump during his first term in office, finding that his executive order was "unconstitutional" and that the plaintiffs "faced irreparable harm absent an injunction." "Here we are again," the judge wrote. The Justice Department appealed Orrick's earlier decision in 2017, but his ruling was upheld by the appeals court. A different federal appeals court, however, ruled in a separate suit that the Trump administration can indeed withhold 'grants' to sanctuary cities. The issue was going to be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2021, but the Biden Justice Department dropped the appeal and the matter was dismissed. Sanctuary cities or states are not official terms - the labels refer to a state, city, county or municipality that has enacted laws that either explicitly or effectively prevent or limit local officials from cooperating with federal immigration authorities. In the current case, the judge noted the Justice Department had argued the plaintiffs' claims are premature 'because the 2025 Executive Orders and the Bondi Directive merely provide guidance for executive agencies reviewing federal funding to sanctuary jurisdictions, and because the Cities and Counties have not yet suffered a loss of funds.' "This is essentially the same argument it made in 2017," Orrick wrote, while the plaintiffs' claims in the new case appear even more persuasive now. The cities and counties' 'well-founded fear of enforcement is even stronger than it was in 2017," the judge wrote, and it stems from Trump's executive orders, Bondi's directive and "numerous directives from executive agencies ordering the withholding of funds to localities like the plaintiffs." He also pointed to " legal action that the Government has already initiated against sanctuary jurisdictions in Illinois and New York, in addition to recent statements from high ranking government officials and the litigation over these issues in the first Trump administration.' Orrick said the cities and counties had also shown "a likelihood of irreparable harm." "The threat to withhold funding causes them irreparable injury in the form of budgetary uncertainty, deprivation of constitutional rights, and undermining trust between the Cities and Counties and the communities they serve," he wrote.
CBS News
10-02-2025
- Politics
- CBS News
Judge directs Trump officials to comply with earlier order halting funding freeze
Washington — A federal judge in Rhode Island said Monday that the Trump administration has not complied with an earlier order that blocked its freeze on federal assistance and ordered agencies to immediately restore any paused or withheld dollars during continuing legal proceedings. The move from U.S. District Judge John McConnell comes in a case brought by a group of 22 states and the District of Columbia challenging the legality of a memo based on President Trump's executive orders and issued by the Office of Management and Budget last month, which directed federal agencies to temporarily pause grants, loans or federal assistance programs. While the budget office rescinded the memo, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said only its directive was being unwound and the broader funding freeze would remain in effect. McConnell, who is overseeing the case involving the states, issued a temporary restraining order late last month that forbade the Trump administration from stopping federal dollars from flowing to states, nonprofits and other entities that had been receiving assistance. But last week, the states told the judge in a filing that the Trump administration was not complying with that order because they continued to be denied access to federal funds. The states said that the Trump administration viewed assistance authorized through the Inflation Reduction Act and bipartisan infrastructure law — both of which were enacted under the Biden administration — as outside the scope of McConnell's order and therefore still subject to the funding freeze. Several grants funded by the two laws and awarded to states and local governments remained inaccessible in the federal payments portal, they said. In other instances, Head Start programs in Michigan and Vermont were not able to access federal funds from the Department of Education, as of Feb. 5, and the National Institutes of Health canceled a review meeting with Brown University's School of Public Health for a $71 million grant for dementia care research, the states said. McConnell agreed to demand the Trump administration restore the still-frozen funds, noting that the order he entered "prohibits all categorical pauses or freezes in obligations or disbursements based on the OMB Directive or based on the president's 2025 Executive Orders." The judge reiterated his finding that the pause on federal assistance is likely unconstitutional and has caused harm to "a vast portion of this country." "These pauses in funding violate the plain text of the [temporary restraining order]," McConnell wrote. Under his most recent order, the Trump administration must immediately restore frozen funding while his temporary restraining order is in effect and end any federal funding pause. The judge directed the Trump administration "immediately take every necessary step" to comply with his temporary restraining order, including clearing administrative or technical obstacles, McConnell wrote, and restore withheld assistance, including federal dollars appropriated in the Inflation Reduction Act and infrastructure law. He ordered the Trump administration to resume funding of institutes or other federal agencies covered by his restraining order. The case before McConnell is one of two brought in response to the White House budget office's memo freezing federal assistance. A second court fight, brought by a coalition of nonprofit organizations, is underway in Washington, D.C. The judge in that case also temporarily blocked the Trump administration from enforcing the pause on government aid.
