Trump Can’t Make End Run Around Sanctuary Cities Order, Judge Says

President Donald Trump can’t use a new executive order to evade a preliminary injunction preventing the administration from rescinding grant funding to sanctuary cities, a San Francisco federal judge said at a Thursday hearing.

Judge William H. Orrick said he intends to issue an order clarifying that the administration still cannot coerce sanctuary jurisdictions by using federal funding as a lever, though the identifying of sanctuary cities and federal funding appropriate for termination, as outlined in Trump’s April 28 executive order, isn’t prohibited.

Orrick issued an injunction on April 24 blocking two previous executive orders that sought to defund sanctuary jurisdictions, cities and counties that have laws preventing local law enforcement form working with or providing information to federal authorities on immigration cases.

The executive order that came four days later prompted San Francisco and 15 other cities and counties suing the administration to seek a modification to the preliminary injunction that would encompass the new executive order.

That new order directed the Attorney General and Department of Homeland Security to create a list of sanctuary jurisdictions and directs all federal agencies to identify grants and funding that it could withhold.

Orrick, of the US District Court for the Northern District of California, said the administration’s act of identifying jurisdictions and funds was not an issue. “Depending on how the evaluation and the identification of the funds goes, that can be a problem or not a problem,” he said.

But if the administration withholds funds for health care or transportation in an effort to coerce immigration enforcement, that would violate the original preliminary injunction, Orrick said.

The judge’s injunction ruling mirrored a nearly identical case from 2017, where Orrick also blocked the first Trump administration’s order rescinding funds for sanctuary cities. That ruling was upheld by a federal appeals court.

The case is City and County of San Francisco v. Trump, N.D. Cal., No. 3:25-cv-01350, 5/8/25.