Dennis Herrera, San Francisco’s City Attorney, says that the city has won a legal victory against the US government in the fight over an immigration law, which was used to deny San Francisco receiving a federal grant by the White House.
Judge William Orrick from the US Court for the Northern District of California ruled that the city’s sanctuary ordinances are lawful, which Herrara says makes the attempt by the federal government to attach conditions to law enforcement grants ‘unconstitutional.’ He added that he is pleased the court recognized the policies and sanctuary laws of San Francisco comply with federal law. Orrick’s ruling says that the Department of Justice should give 28 million dollars to the state of California, which the White House withheld after challenging the immigration policies of the state.
On 11 August 2017, Herrick and Xavier Becerra, the Attorney General of California, filed a lawsuit after President Donald Trump said that he would deny over $1.4 million in federal grants to the law enforcement in San Francisco for the 2017 fiscal year.
The funds come from the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant Program, which Congress created and has been awarded every year for more than three decades. But, the 2017 funds were not given to San Francisco because of the dispute about immigration policies between the federal and local governments. Herrera says there are no laws requiring local or state governments to take part in immigration enforcement.