Since President Trump returned to the White House in January, his administration has mounted an aggressive effort to crack down on cities, counties and states that aren’t participating in its mass deportation campaign, threatening these so-called “sanctuary” jurisdictions with lawsuits, funding cuts and other penalties.
The Trump administration has also directed Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other federal agencies to surge deportation agents to sanctuary jurisdictions like Chicago and Los Angeles, where highly visible federal immigration raids have triggered massive protests and confrontations.
But eight months into Mr. Trump’s second administration, the effort to exert pressure on these jurisdictions has yielded few tangible results, with most lawsuits still unresolved and local Democratic leaders doubling down on policies that limit or bar cooperation with federal immigration officials.
The Justice Department has cited only one case in which a jurisdiction — Louisville, Kentucky — has abandoned its sanctuary policies in the face of legal actions or threats. Nevada’s Republican governor also recently vowed to cooperate with federal immigration officials after his state was identified as a sanctuary jurisdiction.
The administration’s attempts to halt federal funds to sanctuary jurisdictions, meanwhile, have been blocked by federal courts.
More than a dozen lawsuits
Since Mr. Trump took office, the Justice Department has filed lawsuits against more than a dozen Democratic-led states, counties and cities, according to a CBS News review of court filings.
The lawsuits target major cities led by Democrats, including New York City, Los Angeles, Boston and Denver, along with smaller jurisdictions, such as Rochester, New York, and Newark, Hoboken, Paterson and Jersey City in New Jersey. The states of Illinois, Minnesota, New York and Colorado have also been sued.
The Trump administration has argued in the lawsuits that local sanctuary policies hinder the federal government’s ability to enforce immigration laws and directly conflict with the U.S. Constitution’s supremacy clause, which established that federal laws override state laws in case of conflict.
While there’s no uniform definition for “sanctuary” policies, they generally restrict or prohibit cooperation between local law enforcement officials and federal immigration agencies like ICE. They include prohibitions on local officials notifying ICE when they release noncitizens who are incarcerated or are detaining people at ICE’s request, and policies that restrict information-sharing with federal immigration authorities, to varying degrees.
The targeted jurisdictions have strongly defended their policies in court, citing the 10th Amendment’s anti-commandeering doctrine that prohibits the federal government from forcing state or local officials to enforce federal laws. In a motion this summer, Jersey City told a federal judge that the Trump administration was seeking to “force states or local authorities to implement or enforce federal law, which is expressly prohibited.”
The vast majority of the Trump administration’s lawsuits against sanctuary jurisdictions remain pending in federal courts across the country. In the summer, a federal judge dismissed the administration’s lawsuit against Illinois and Cook County.
Warnings
The Trump administration has also repeatedly threatened to take legal action against other jurisdictions.
In August, at the direction of Mr. Trump, the Justice Department published a list of nearly 40 “states, cities, and counties identified as having policies, laws, or regulations that impede enforcement of federal immigration laws.” Attorney General Pam Bondi then sent warning letters to almost all localities on the list, ordering recipients to explain how they planned to dismantle their sanctuary policies.
The Department of Homeland Security escalated the effort earlier in September by sending letters to California, New York and Illinois, warning that their refusal to honor so-called “detainer” requests from ICE could trigger federal legal action. Those requests ask local law enforcement officials to hold noncitizen detainees slated for release until ICE can arrive and arrest them at a local jail or prison.
The Justice Department has said it could update its list of sanctuary cities, counties and states in the future to “include additional jurisdictions and remove jurisdictions that have remediated their policies, practices, and laws.”
Last week, Nevada became the first jurisdiction to be removed from that list after the state’s Republican governor, Joe Lombardo, signed a memorandum of understanding with the Justice Department vowing to have state officials cooperate with federal immigration authorities, including by moving to “counter-balance” actions by the Nevada Legislature or its attorney general, Aaron Ford, a Democrat.
Louisville, Kentucky, is the only jurisdiction that dropped its sanctuary policies following a written warning from Bondi’s office in June. Louisville’s Democratic mayor, Craig Greenberg, responded to Bondi in July, agreeing to make the requested policy change, with the understanding that the city would then be removed from the list of sanctuary jurisdictions.
A spokesperson for the Department of Justice confirmed to CBS News that no other jurisdiction has backed down from their policies, and declined to comment on further actions the administration may pursue.
Democratic New York City Mayor Eric Adams has called for the city to “tweak” its sanctuary laws following a Trump administration lawsuit, but the idea has faced opposition in the City Council.
Attempted funding cuts
Several federal agencies, including the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security, have launched efforts to withhold funding from sanctuary jurisdictions, citing executive orders by Mr. Trump calling for funding cuts.
Some of the attempted funding cuts involve federal programs that support law enforcement, community policing and urban development, including Byrne Justice Assistance grants, Community Oriented Policing Services grants, and Housing and Urban Development funding.
In February, 16 Democratic cities and counties, including San Francisco and Seattle, filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration challenging the funding cuts. San Francisco-based federal Judge William Orrick sided with the jurisdictions in April, barring the administration “from directly or indirectly taking any action to withhold, freeze, or condition federal funds from the cities and counties.” In September, Orrick expanded his order, blocking the administration from withholding funds from more than 30 jurisdictions, including Los Angeles.
Another federal judge, William Smith, ruled in September that it is unconstitutional for the Trump administration to make certain grants from the Federal Emergency Management Agency conditional on states’ cooperation with federal immigration officials.
The court rulings, along with several other lawsuits that remain pending, have stalled the administration’s funding cuts. The Justice Department has appealed the ruling out of San Francisco.
A longstanding political divide
Disagreements over the merits of sanctuary policies have been part of the broader immigration debate in the U.S. for decades.
Advocates for sanctuary policies argue that cooperation with ICE erodes community trust with local police, making immigrants fearful of contacting law enforcement and, as a result, unlikely to report crimes.
Those who oppose sanctuary policies argue they obstruct federal immigration law enforcement and undermine public safety, since they often prevent ICE from arresting noncitizens charged with crimes inside local jails.
Matt Hudak, a longtime Border Patrol official who retired as the agency’s deputy chief in 2023, said sanctuary policies inhibit local and federal law enforcement from sharing information and working together, creating what he called “dark spaces” that put both officers and the public at risk.
“Any time that law enforcement does not cooperate with law enforcement, there is a very dangerous blind spot,” Hudak told CBS News.
Those blind spots, Hudak argued, can be exploited by Transnational Criminal Organizations, such as Mexican drug cartels, who knowingly “operate in those shadows,” because “the things that maybe would get them exposed are now shielded.”
Democratic Denver Mayor Mike Johnson said the argument about so-called sanctuary policies jeopardizing public safety is “patently false.”
“We successfully attacked and dramatically depleted the forces of MS-13 here,” said Johnson.
Denver is one of the cities designated a sanctuary jurisdiction by the Department of Justice. But Johnson called the Trump administration’s legal actions “political theater,” saying Denver is “not a sanctuary city.”
“We do not provide sanctuary or safe harbor to folks who have committed violent crimes or have broken any local laws,” Johnson told CBS News. “If anyone is a public safety threat, we are 100% on top of it.”
