By Bob Egelko, Courts Reporter Updated Feb 7, 2025 3:15 p.m.(SFChronicle.com)
San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu announces a new legal action against the Trump administration regarding sanctuary cities on Friday.Benjamin Fanjoy/Special to the Chronicle
San Francisco and other cities and counties nationwide announced a plan to fight back Friday against the Trump administration’s attempt to require them to cooperate with federal immigration agents in mass deportations, arguing in a lawsuit that the attack on sanctuary cities violates their constitutional right to manage their own police departments and run their governments.
“The Trump administration’s actions have nothing to do with public safety because we know that sanctuary laws improve public safety,” City Attorney David Chiu said in announcing the lawsuit being filed in San Francisco federal court.
“Donald Trump has been violating the law and the Constitution on a daily basis,” Chiu said at a news conference. He cited the president’s attempt to revoke birthright citizenship for U.S.-born children of undocumented immigrants, despite a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 1898 that said the Constitution’s 14th Amendment grants citizenship to children born in the United States.
In line with Trump’s vow to deport record numbers of unauthorized immigrants, he has ordered federal agencies to cut off funding to local governments that do not order their police to hold migrants in custody and turn them over to federal agents. Trump’s Justice Department has also told federal prosecutors to file criminal charges against local officials who do not cooperate.
On Thursday, Trump’s attorney general, Pam Bondi, sued Illinois, the city of Chicago and Cook County over the state’s 2017 sanctuary law that prevents police from keeping immigrants in custody beyond their scheduled release date unless a judge has issued a warrant for their detention.
San Francisco’s sanctuary law, in effect since 1989, similarly prohibits police from asking people they arrest about their immigration status or holding them in custody for federal agents.
Last week, Rep. Kevin Kiley, R-Rocklin (Placer County), introduced federal legislation that would allow local officials in sanctuary states to ignore their state law and notify federal agents about undocumented immigrants in custody. Kiley said California and 10 other states have such laws.
“Many local jurisdictions across California are ready to do their part but face uncertainty because of California’s so-called ‘Sanctuary State’ law,” Kiley said in a statement. “My legislation makes clear that local law enforcement officials are free to communicate with federal immigration authorities, irrespective of misguided and legally dubious state laws.”
Chiu, however, noted Friday that Trump tried to cut off federal funding to San Francisco in his first term, but federal courts ruled in the city’s favor. Federal courts also upheld California’s “sanctuary state” law, which applies to local police, sheriffs’ deputies and state officers. The law does not protect immigrants who have been convicted of violent crimes.
Chiu said sanctuary laws encourage crime victims and witnesses to contact police without fear of being arrested and deported. Immigration law, he said, is the responsibility of the federal government, not state and local governments. And because federal officials know the name of every San Francisco jail inmate, he said, they can obtain an arrest warrant if they have legal grounds for taking an inmate into custody.
“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,” the city attorney said. “That is illegal and authoritarian. As local officials, we have a right to do our jobs without threats and interference from the federal government.”
Other plaintiffs in the lawsuit include Santa Clara County; Portland, Ore.; King County, Wash., and New Haven, Conn.
“The federal government can’t commandeer our local governments,” said Santa Clara County Counsel Tony LoPresti, who joined Chiu at the news conference. “We’re litigating again, and we will prevail again.”
Reach Bob Egelko: begelko@sfchronicle.com; X: @BobEgelko
Feb 7, 2025|Updated Feb 7, 2025 3:15 p.m.
COURTS REPORTER
Bob Egelko has been a reporter since June 1970. He spent 30 years with the Associated Press, covering news, politics and occasionally sports in Los Angeles, San Diego and Sacramento, and legal affairs in San Francisco from 1984 onward. He worked for the San Francisco Examiner for five months in 2000, then joined The Chronicle in November 2000.His beat includes state and federal courts in California, the Supreme Court and the State Bar. He has a law degree from McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento and is a member of the bar. Coverage has included the passage of Proposition 13 in 1978, the appointment of Rose Bird to the state Supreme Court and her removal by the voters, the death penalty in California and the battles over gay rights and same-sex marriage.
