Donald Trump wants states and cities to do as they are told
PAT BURNS carries Donald Trump around with him. Figuratively—he says the president gives him “hope”—but also literally. The Republican mayor of Huntington Beach, California brought a bust of Mr Trump to a recent council meeting. The city is California’s MAGA capital. Last month the city attorney, Michael Gates, sued the state (again) to try to avoid complying with a law that limits California’s co-operation with federal immigration authorities. Huntington Beach has also declared itself a “nonsanctuary city”. The state government has a “tyrannical” mentality, argues Mr Gates. “Huntington Beach is just fighting for its local control.”
Republican islands in Democratic states are not the only places crying out for that. Mr Trump is testing the limits of executive power in countless ways, including by trying to force states and cities to abandon policies he dislikes. Democrats who want to limit his influence find themselves arguing for states’ rights, long a conservative rallying cry. The president wants to “kill” congestion pricing in New York, and release more water from California’s reservoirs to farmers. But the best example of this fight over state sovereignty and the particulars of American federalism comes from local sanctuary policies and the backlash against them.
The sanctuary movement began in the 1980s, when churches near the southern border offered shelter to people fleeing brutal regimes in Central America propped up by the American government. That act of civil disobedience evolved into municipal policy when cities adopted sanctuary ordinances, limiting their co-operation with immigration authorities. These measures proliferated during Barack Obama’s presidency as a protest against a policy that increased information-sharing between local law officers and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which carries out deportations. Mr Trump’s animus towards immigrants during his first term supercharged the movement. Eleven states have sanctuary laws on the books.
Sanctuary laws can prevent cops and jails from co-operating with ICE, stop police from asking about someone’s immigration status or provide legal aid and benefits to unauthorised immigrants. None of these measures prevent ICE from operating independently in Democratic states. But because the agency depends on local law officers to voluntarily hand over migrants, such laws can reduce deportations. This is the reason for Mr Trump’s ire: carrying out mass deportations gets tricker when the leaders of big diverse states say no thank you. As of 2022 about half of America’s 11m undocumented immigrants lived in Democrat-run states; and at least 5m live in “trifecta” states where Democrats control both the legislature and the governor’s mansion (see map).
Mr Trump’s attempts to withhold Department of Justice (DoJ) funding from sanctuary jurisdictions during his first term failed because the Tenth Amendment “prevents the federal government from forcing, commanding, coercing their co-operation”, says Pratheepan Gulasekaram, a law professor at the University of Colorado, Boulder. That has not stopped Mr Trump from trying again. Pam Bondi, his attorney-general, issued a directive threatening to withhold DoJ funds from sanctuary jurisdictions and prosecute local governments for resisting federal immigration operations. Ms Bondi’s first targets were Illinois and New York. “If you are a state not complying with federal law, you’re next, get ready,” she said in a press conference. San Francisco has already sued the administration on Tenth Amendment grounds.
Although the federal government has so far failed to crack down on local sanctuary policies and the officials who enact them, Republican-run states—home to at least 5.2m unauthorised immigrants—are succeeding. There is no Tenth Amendment equivalent for cities and counties, which are considered “creatures of the state”, a definition that leaves little room for legal autonomy. Bill Miller, a Republican strategist in Austin, says that Texas’s governor, lieutenant-governor and attorney-general chose not to take cabinet jobs because they reckon they can wield more power at home. “The federal government is taking their cues from Texas,” he adds.
Anti-sanctuary bills, which are multiplying in Republican states, fall into two categories. The first set bans sanctuary laws and comes with penalties for non-compliance. Last year Georgia passed a law that revokes state funds from sanctuary cities, and Louisiana ensured that the state’s top lawyer can sue them. A new law in Tennessee makes voting for a sanctuary-style policy a felony punishable by up to six years in prison. Chris Carr, Georgia’s attorney-general, who is running for governor, argues that more progressive cities like Athens and Savannah that try to thwart the state’s immigration agenda “undermine the rule of law”.
The second set mandates that cities must co-operate with state and federal raids. Several states want to force law-enforcement agencies into a hitherto voluntary ICE programme that deputises police to act as immigration agents. A bill in Florida, the state with the third-biggest unauthorised immigrant population, would make illegal entry a state crime and allocates $250m for local sheriffs to enforce immigration rules.
The states’ justifications for these laws are largely untested, and cities may soon sue. Their strongest case will probably be against state laws that limit their free speech and democratic process, says Rick Su of the University of North Carolina. Cities may also succeed in arguing that by forcing them to do immigration enforcement, states are mandating extra work without pay. Eric Johnson, Dallas’s Republican mayor, says that although his city is prepared to “do what we are asked”, he does not want to raise taxes to “take on new responsibilities”. The sheriff of Orleans Parish, Louisiana, says she does not have the funds to detain immigrants for as long as ICE wants her to.
Republican cities in Democratic states are equally unhappy. Huntington Beach argues that its city charter makes it less a creature of California than its own sovereign entity. But Mr Gates is not sticking around to see how his lawsuit pans out. He is heading to Washington, DC to work for Ms Bondi, where his remit may include cracking down on sanctuary cities. He admits that “It’s probably a good fit.”■
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