With President Donald Trump pledging Wednesday to strip federal money from “sanctuary cities,” Bay Area mayors presented a united front, vowing to work together to protect immigrants and stave off the potential loss of millions of dollars in federal funding.
“We will not give in to threats or political grandstanding,” said San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee, joining Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf, Berkeley Mayor Jesse Arreguín and San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo. “Together, the Bay Area will stay true to our values of inclusiveness, compassion and equality, and united against any and all efforts to divide our residents, our cities and our country.”
Trump on Wednesday signed an executive order to deny so-called sanctuary cities — who protect illegal immigrants — federal grants, which fund health, social services, housing and education programs, among others. However, it’s not clear how the order will be carried out and whether the president has the authority to withhold federal funds from these jurisdictions. California has an estimated 3 million illegal immigrants.
Cities and counties throughout California, including San Jose, Oakland, San Francisco as well as Alameda and Santa Cruz counties, have declared themselves sanctuaries for undocumented residents, declining to cooperate with federal immigration officials looking to detain or deport particular individuals.
Oakland stands to lose $130 million in federal funding, $40 million of which is ongoing funds. Officials are currently doing a financial analysis to see how they can make up for the funds if they are cut.
Mayor Libby Schaaf said she is most concerned about $18 million in federal money for early education programs for “our most vulnerable children.” She was also fearful of what will happen to residents who gave personal family information to the government as part of DACA, an executive action issued under the Obama administration.
“We can always expect changes in policies and priorities with each new administration but when one administration gives assurances to a vulnerable population, the next should not use that program as a weapon against them,” Schaaf said. “It will just destroy trust in government and it’s disrespecting the American tradition of a peaceful transfer of power.”
San Jose officials say the city received $78 million in federal funding for the current fiscal year. The city’s overall budget for fiscal 2016-2017 is $3.2 billion, according to city staff.
California’s new attorney general, Xavier Becerra, issued a statement Wednesday– his first full day on the job — urging people to “put these White House actions in context” and promising to protect Californians from “unwarranted intrusion from any source, including the federal government.”
“Executive orders do not change existing law,” Becerra wrote. “Executive orders cannot contradict existing law. And executive orders can be challenged for violating constitutional and legal standards in their enforcement.”
San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo said Trump’s actions on Wednesday “will not change how we police our city.”
“We are not going to engage in immigration enforcement, and we are also not going to engage in conspiracies with immigration officers that are going to undermine our ability to maintain the trust and relationship that we currently enjoy with our entire community,” he said.
Although Santa Clara County has never officially designated itself as a sanctuary destination, the board of supervisors has repeatedly said the county would not cooperate with requests that jail officials notify federal immigration officers before releasing a noncitizen and to hold off for 48 hours before doing so, giving the feds time to take the person into custody.
“It depends on exactly what the feds say and what they consider to be a Sanctuary County,” said county executive Jeff Smith. “We haven’t had a resolution to that effect and that detail will be important.”
About $1 billion of the county’s $6.2 billion budget comes from federal sources, mostly related to health, hospital and social services programs. Smith said if there is a threat to withhold funds they will pursue remedies through administrative appeals in the courts.
Reaction to Trump’s orders throughout the Bay Area was swift and angry.
“Sadly, this comes as no surprise,” said Maricela Gutierrez, executive director of the immigrant rights organization, SIREN, during a news conference Wednesday. “Although there are many questions that remain unanswered, there is one thing we know without a doubt: What I do know is that our communities are resilient and that we will continue to fight for the protection and well-being of our undocumented, immigrant and refugee communities.”
Santa Clara University law professor Deep Gulasekaram said that while Trump’s executive order states that the government’s executive branch has the power to work with local and state jurisdictions to ensure they’re complying with federal law, “There is nothing in it that goes specifically to sanctuary jurisdictions or to punishing them.”
“In any of these circumstances, all of these will be subject to significant legal challenges in court, testing the constitutionality and legality of these tactics,” he said.
Avideh Moussavian, policy attorney in National Immigration Law Center’s Washington, D.C. office, said it’s unclear if Congress can strip sanctuary cities of federal funding. But if Congress tries, she said she guarantees many pro-immigrant agencies will fight back, adding that “a lot of places are arming themselves with legal arguments” to try and fight the White House.
Ira Mehlman, spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, or FAIR, said his group thinks that “cutting off federal funding and other grants is an appropriate response for local jurisdictions that obstruct federal immigration laws.”
“There’s very little reason,” he said, “why Congress should not include this sort of language in appropriations measures that restrict federal funding on the fact that these jurisdictions are obstructing federal immigration policy. It takes two to create an impasse. These local jurisdictions could very easily avoid these sorts of situations.”
One Bay Area lawmaker said she would support actions on immigration that focus on removing violent felons from the country. Cutting funding to sanctuary cities, said Assemblywoman Catharine Baker, R-Dublin, “absolutely has to be on the table.”
“If you are obstructing our ability to keep people who are committing crime off the street then we absolutely need to look at whether you should be getting federal dollars,” said Baker in an interview Wednesday.
Staff writers David DeBolt, Patrick May, Katy Murphy, Eric Kurhi and Thomas Peele contributed to this report.
