In his latest crackdown on immigration, President Donald Trump ordered the publication of a list of “sanctuary” cities and states “obstructing federal immigration law enforcement” and threatened to cut their federal funding in an April 28 executive order.
The jurisdictions in question are cities and states that withdraw local participation from the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s civil deportation efforts, according to Mark Fleming, the associate director of litigation at the National Immigrant Justice Center in Chicago.
The administration’s list may include Evanston, which strengthened its own 2016 Welcoming City Ordinance in January to protect residents, regardless of immigration status, from federal crackdowns under the second Trump administration.
The list will be published by late May, as decreed by the order. Still, in a statement to The Daily, the City of Evanston said it remains committed to its ordinance and is not involved in any litigation at this time.
“The City of Evanston continues to closely monitor executive orders, various legal proceedings, and related developments at the federal level,” the statement said. “It is unclear what, if any, impact there is for Evanston at this time.”
While the order’s impact on the city remains uncertain, the Trump administration has recently targeted the Chicago area for immigration crackdowns. The Department of Justice sued Chicago, Cook County and the state of Illinois for their respective “sanctuary” laws in early February, following leaked plans of deportation crackdowns in Chicago soon after Trump’s inauguration. More recently, the DOJ sued the state of Illinois for worker privacy provisions it alleges interfere with federal immigration enforcement.
Still, “sanctuary” city designations, though polarizing in national politics, are not officially defined in federal law.
While the executive order accuses these jurisdictions of “non-compliance” with federal immigration enforcement, Fleming said it is not the jurisdictions’ legal role to participate in deportations.
The decision to withdraw from federal deportation efforts is crucial in cases of civil enforcement because it keeps officials from deporting people solely due to their immigration status. However, for criminal matters, cities still enforce state and local criminal laws against all residents, regardless of immigration status.
“It is not about compliance because there is no obligation nor authority for local police to be doing immigration enforcement in the first place,” Fleming said.
Fred Tsao, senior policy counsel for the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, prefers to designate “sanctuary” legislation as “welcoming” due to its goal to strengthen relations between local law enforcement and communities of varying immigration status.
Tsao and the ICIRR aided Evanston in drafting the initial Welcoming City Ordinance in 2016 and its amendments earlier this year. He said the threats from Trump’s executive order seem unlikely to materialize due to key court precedents set during Trump’s first term.
The City of Evanston, alongside the U.S. Conference of Mayors, previously litigated against the DOJ in 2018 due to the first Trump administration’s threats to withhold a federal grant program because of the city’s “welcoming” status.
Evanston prevailed, with the district court ruling that the Attorney General could not force immigration compliance by withholding federal funds. Other legal precedents include San Francisco’s successful 2017 lawsuit against the DOJ, which also ruled withholding federal funds unconstitutional.
Fleming said the legal circumstances remain unchanged from the first Trump administration and that lists of “sanctuary” jurisdictions already existed within the federal government. He called the executive order a unilateral act of “political theater” designed to distract from other divisive issues, like cuts to social services.
“This is an issue that has been fully litigated, locally and nationally, and an issue that they lost resoundingly during the first Trump administration,” Fleming said. “These aren’t close calls of law.”
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— City Council amends ‘welcoming city’ ordinance, broadens protections for undocumented residents
