US judge blocks Trump from withholding funds from 16 'sanctuary' cities, counties

A federal judge in San Francisco on Thursday blocked Donald Trump's administration from withholding federal funding from several so-called sanctuary jurisdictions that have declined to cooperate with the Republican president's fhardline immigration crackdown.

US District Judge William Orrick issued the injunction at the request of 16 cities and counties nationally led by San Francisco that in a lawsuit filed in February argued that the administration was unlawfully trying to force local officials to cooperate with federal immigration arrests.

Those jurisdictions include the cities of Minneapolis, New Haven, Portland, St. Paul, Santa Fe and Seattle. They argue that the administration is seeking to punish them for exercising their rights to limit the use of their resources for federal civil immigration enforcement.

The lawsuit challenged an executive order Trump signed that threatened to cut off federal funding to sanctuary jurisdictions that limit or refuse to cooperate with federal immigration law enforcement, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The localities sued a day after the US Department of Justice sued the state of Illinois and the city of Chicago, seeking a court order blocking so-called sanctuary laws that the Democratic-led jurisdictions adopted that it said were interfering with Trump's agenda.

Sanctuary laws prevent state and local law enforcement from assisting federal civil immigration officers.

The Justice Department has since then also filed a lawsuit challenging a New York law that bars the Democratic-led state from sharing vehicle and address information with federal immigration authorities.