In his first week in office in 2017, former President Donald Trump issued an Executive Order instructing his administration to deny all federal funds to any state or local government that did not follow his anti-immigration agenda. A few months later, we scored a major victory against this illegal attempt to force local governments across the country to abandon their pro-immigrant policies.
As a longstanding champion for immigrants’ rights, the County does not assist the federal government with immigration enforcement. Since 2011, County policy has banned using local resources or staff to cooperate with ICE. With his Executive Order, President Trump wanted to coerce states, counties, and cities to cave on their pro-immigrant policies. The threat worked, with local governments like Miami-Dade County quickly announcing they were letting go of their policies in order to keep their federally funded programs and services in business.
Although the County relies heavily on federal dollars to support its public hospital system, emergency services, law enforcement, Medi-Cal access, foster care services, and more, the County was not willing to give up its protections for immigrant community members in order to keep the funding. Instead, we filed a federal lawsuit with San Francisco, arguing that the Executive Order violated the Constitution. We won a temporary injunction blocking the Executive Order, and then a ruling that declared the Executive Order unconstitutional and permanently barred the Trump Administration from enforcing it nationwide. In 2018, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the permanent injunction within California.
