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Yahoo
3 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
On Sanctuary Cities, It's Trump vs. the 10th Amendment
Over the past three months, the Trump administration has filed lawsuits against Los Angeles, Illinois, Colorado, New York state, New York City, and other places for the express purpose of forcing them to abolish their "sanctuary city" policies and start aiding the feds in rounding up undocumented immigrants and enforcing federal immigration laws. But unless the U.S. Supreme Court rapidly overturns several of its own precedents, including a recent one from 2018, all of these cases will be constitutional losers for President Donald Trump. Why? Here is how the late conservative legal hero and long-serving Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia once spelled it out. "The Federal Government may neither issue directives requiring the States to address particular problems," Scalia wrote for the Court's majority in Printz v. United States (1997), "nor command the States' officers, or those of their political subdivisions, to administer or enforce a federal regulatory program." At issue in Printz was the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act of 1993, which, among other things, required state and local police to help the feds enforce federal gun control laws. However, Scalia held, such "federal commandeering of state governments" violated the constitutional principles of federalism secured by the 10th Amendment. Scalia's ruling in Printz was recently reaffirmed and expanded by the Supreme Court in Murphy v. National Collegiate Athletic Association (2018), which struck down a federal law that prohibited states from legalizing sports gambling. At the time it was decided, Printz was widely criticized by liberals, who objected to the idea of state and local officials stymying a federal gun control scheme. Now, the same anticommandeering doctrine that led to a "conservative" result in Printz is standing in the way of Trump's immigration crackdown. According to Trump's Justice Department, sanctuary city policies, such as when local police are generally forbidden from notifying the feds about a noncitizen's custody status or release date from custody, "reflect an intentional effort to obstruct federal law enforcement." But federal agents still retain their own independent authority to enforce federal immigration law inside of sanctuary states and cities, just as federal authorities retain the independent authority to enforce other federal laws in states and cities. The key point under Printz is that it is unconstitutional for the feds to compel local officials to lend them a helping hand in carrying out the enforcement of federal law. Because these sanctuary cases all feature the federal government in direct and open conflict with a state or city, one or more of them will probably end up before the Supreme Court in due time. Perhaps it will be United States v. Illinois. Last week, Judge Lindsay Jenkins of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois Eastern Division ruled that the Prairie State's various sanctuary laws were safeguarded from the Trump administration's lawsuit by the anticommandeering principle embraced in Printz, Murphy, and related precedents. "The Sanctuary Policies reflect [Illinois'] decision to not participate in enforcing civil immigration law—a decision protected by the Tenth Amendment and not preempted by" the Immigration and Nationality Act, the judge wrote. I expect a majority of the Supreme Court to adopt the same position if or when the opportunity arises. If it is unconstitutional for the feds to mandate local cooperation in enforcing federal gun control, it is unconstitutional for the feds to mandate local cooperation in enforcing federal immigration control. The national policies under dispute may be different, but the underlying constitutional issue is the same. As long as Printz remains good law, Trump's efforts to override the actions of sanctuary states and cities will be thwarted by Scalia's judgment. The post On Sanctuary Cities, It's Trump vs. the 10th Amendment appeared first on Solve the daily Crossword
San Francisco Chronicle
12-07-2025
- Politics
- San Francisco Chronicle
Here's what sanctuary cities like S.F. can do to protect immigrants from ICE — and what they can't
Since 1989, San Francisco has declared itself a 'sanctuary city' and put policies in place that limit its cooperation with what is now Immigration and Customs Enforcement. As the Trump administration has significantly escalated its efforts to deport undocumented immigrants in recent months, there has been widespread confusion about what the term 'sanctuary' means — and what authority cities do or don't have to resist federal immigration enforcement efforts. San Francisco, and the hundreds of sanctuary cities like it across the country, do not have to cooperate with ICE agents and federal immigration authorities. But neither can they interfere with or impede federal agents carrying out federal law. Although the distinction at times may seem arbitrary, it is one well established in the law. Cities do not — and cannot legally — provide literal sanctuary to those that ICE wants to apprehend. Rather, in a sanctuary city, its police, its teachers and its health officials do not turn over people to ICE. That is a policy that makes great sense. San Francisco and other cities rightly worry that if police turned people over to ICE, then victims of crime and witnesses would be much less likely to come forward. If school officials cooperated with ICE, parents would be less likely to send their children to school. If health officials helped enforce immigration laws, sick people would be less likely to seek treatment. Refusing to cooperate with federal agents in this manner is protected by the U.S. Constitution. The Supreme Court has been clear that the federal government cannot commandeer state and local governments to carry out federal mandates. For example, in the 1997 case Printz v. the United States, the court declared unconstitutional a provision of the Brady Handgun Control Act that required state and local law enforcement departments to conduct background checks before issuing permits for firearms. The court said that the federal government cannot conscript state and local governments and compel them to enforce federal law. In a majority opinion by Justice Antonin Scalia, the court held that such commandeering violates the 10th Amendment to the Constitution. That said, Congress can try to induce state and local governments to act by putting conditions on federal grants. However, the law is well established that it is for Congress — by way of a federal statute — to set conditions; presidents cannot do so on their own. Thus far, Congress has not conditioned the distribution of federal law enforcement money on state and local governments cooperating with ICE. The Trump administration cannot add requirements not found in the federal spending law. That hasn't stopped President Donald Trump from trying, of course. During Trump's first term, the Justice Department attempted to withdraw federal law enforcement funds from cities that did not cooperate with ICE. However, in a lawsuit filed by San Francisco, the U.S. Court of Appeals based in San Francisco ruled in 2018 that the president did not have the legal authority to withhold the funds from cities. Also, the Supreme Court has been clear that the federal government cannot coerce state and local action by withholding federal funds. In 2012, in National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius, the court declared unconstitutional a provision of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act that required state governments receiving Medicaid funds to provide coverage to those within 133% of the federal poverty level. States that did not comply would lose all federal Medicaid funds. The court said that this was 'dragooning' the states, impermissibly commandeering them to comply with a federal mandate. The same ruling would apply if the federal government tried to coerce local governments into cooperating with ICE. The current Trump administration has, of course, threatened local government officials who don't cooperate with federal immigration officials. Just a day after Trump's inauguration in January, acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove wrote a memo to the Justice Department calling on U.S. attorneys to prosecute state and local officials who do not cooperate with deportation efforts. President Trump also has expressed this, saying that state and local officials face prosecution for failing to assist his immigration policies. But such prosecutions would be unconstitutional: State and local officials do not have to cooperate with the federal government. On June 30, the Trump administration filed a lawsuit against the city of Los Angeles for its refusal to cooperate with ICE. Los Angeles does not allow city resources to be used to assist immigration enforcement, and that policy should prevail in this lawsuit. A city gets to decide for itself how it will spend its budget and what its officers may do. The federal government cannot constitutionally force a municipality to use its resources and its personnel to assist in the enforcement of federal law; that is impermissible commandeering. But neither can cities act to obstruct ICE and federal immigration officials. Los Angeles, San Francisco and any other city cannot provide shelter to those ICE wants to apprehend. Nor can they prevent ICE agents from entering buildings or arresting people. Active interference with ICE agents can be punished. Understandably, neither side is entirely happy with these principles. The Trump administration wants to force state and local officials to assist ICE. Opponents of Trump's policies want cities to do even more to provide protection and thwart ICE. But the law — that San Francisco and other cities don't have to cooperate with ICE but cannot actively obstruct it either — makes great sense. The federal government can enforce federal law as it sees appropriate, but it can't force state and local governments to help. State and local governments can choose not to assist ICE, but they can't obstruct it. Erwin Chemerinsky is the dean and the Jesse H. Choper Distinguished Professor of Law at the UC Berkeley School of Law.
