SF Metropolis Legal professional David Chiu is main a lawsuit in opposition to the Trump administration for concentrating on sanctuary cities, and Chiu’s odds could also be good, as a result of his workplace introduced the identical lawsuit in opposition to Trump in 2017 — and received.
On Wednesday night time, a protest wound its means by way of the Mission District in opposition to President Trump’s mass deportation plans and ICE crackdowns. SF Metropolis Legal professional David Chiu was apparently acquired the message.
Photograph by Joe Kukura, SFist
On the heels of final week’s anti-deportation rally at Metropolis Corridor, KQED reviews that Chiu is main a brand new lawsuit in opposition to the Trump administration in an SF federal court docket for concentrating on sanctuary cities. Trump has been threatening to withhold federal funding from, and prosecute authorities officers in sanctuary cities like San Francisco that don’t help Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in deportation operations.
“The Trump Administration’s actions have nothing to do with public safety because we know that sanctuary laws improve public safety,” Chiu stated in a press launch saying the lawsuit. “This is the federal government illegally asserting a right it does not have, telling cities how to use their resources, and commandeering local law enforcement. This is the federal government coercing local officials to bend to their will or face defunding or prosecution. That is illegal and authoritarian. As local officials, we have a right to do our jobs without threats and interference from the federal government.”
The Trump administration issued a Day One government order saying that sanctuary cities would lose their federal funding (that order is entitled “Protecting the American People Against Invasion”). This week, the Division of Justice issued a memo telling federal legislation enforcement officers to prosecute native officers who don’t assist in ICE enforcement operations. And simply yesterday, new US Legal professional Normal Pam Bondi sued Chicago and the state of Illinois over their sanctuary metropolis insurance policies.
However Chiu might properly have the legislation on his facet. San Francisco introduced basically the very same lawsuit in opposition to the earlier Trump administration in 2017, beneath then-Metropolis Legal professional Dennis Herrera. Herrera received that lawsuit in federal court docket and within the appeals court docket, and the Trump-backed enchantment of that call was dismissed by the Supreme Courtroom in 2021.
Whereas Chiu’s workplace is main the lawsuit, his workplace is joined within the go well with by Santa Clara County, and the cities of Portland, Oregon, and New Haven, Connecticut, in addition to Washington state’s King County.
“We have seen the administration moving so fast, and oftentimes so chaotically, it’s difficult to tell when they are putting something forward or withdrawing it,” Santa Clara County counsel Tony LoPresti stated at a Friday press convention alongside Chiu. “So rather than be caught flat-footed, we definitely felt like we needed to be proactive rather than wait for the impacts to our residents in our community.”
Associated: Metropolis Corridor Rallies After at Least 5 ICE Operations Had been Tried (and Apparently Failed) In SF [SFist]
Picture: SF Metropolis Legal professional
