Local opposition to the Trump administration, 2017

Opposition to the Trump administration (2017)
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Days after the 2016 election, politicians, organizations, and others began to strategize about opposing Republican President Donald Trump's policies and administration. This page chronicles tactics that cities and counties developed to oppose Trump's policy agenda. The opposition strategies outlined below are tactics that have been reported by notable, reliable sources. This page was last updated in August 2017.

Local opposition

Sanctuary cities

Sanctuary cities are cities that have enacted policies limiting the involvement of local officials in the enforcement of federal immigration law. On December 12, 2016, a Politico report detailed 37 sanctuary cities that had reaffirmed their sanctuary status after Trump threatened to pull federal funding to sanctuary cities. The report indicated that four additional cities (Santa Ana, California; Burlington, Vermont; Montpelier, Vermont; and Winooski, Vermont) issued formal declarations of their sanctuary status after the 2016 presidential election. The following cities reaffirmed their sanctuary status in late 2016:

• Appleton, Wisconsin
• Ashland, Oregon
• Aurora, Colorado
• Austin, Texas
• Berkeley, California
• Boston, Massachusetts
• Cambridge, Massachusetts
• Chicago, Illinois
• Denver, Colorado
• Detroit, Michigan
• Evanston, Illinois
• Hartford, Connecticut
• Jersey City, New Jersey
• Los Angeles, California
• Madison, Wisconsin
• Minneapolis, Minnesota
• Nashville, Tennessee
• New Haven, Connecticut
• New York, New York
• Newark, New Jersey
• Newton, Massachusetts
• Oakland, California
• Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
• Phoenix, Arizona
• Portland, Oregon
• Providence, Rhode Island
• Richmond, California
• San Francisco, California
• Santa Fe, New Mexico
• Seattle, Washington
• Somerville, Massachusetts
• St. Paul, Minnesota
• Syracuse, New York
• Takoma Park, Maryland
• Tucson, Arizona
• Washington, D.C.

Los Angeles, California

• In January 2017, Sheila Kuehl, a Democratic member of the county board of supervisors, began encouraging a slowdown of any local government dealings with the federal government, a policy she called Operation Monkey Wrench. She told The New York Times, "I am encouraging people to engage in any way they can to slow down anything that might come from the federal departments and Congress."
• On December 20, 2016, Los Angeles announced a $10 million fund to provide legal support for immigrants facing deportation. Mayor Eric Garcetti (D) said, "We don't know how far the new administration will go when it comes to our nation's immigration policy, but we've all heard the rhetoric, the dangerous rhetoric of the election. And we are ready to support people who can't afford or who don't realize they might need a lawyer."
• On November 16, 2016, Police Chief Charlie Beck said that he would continue the city's policy of not initiating police contact based on suspicions about a person's immigration status. He said, "Policing is local, and the feds can’t dictate how they’re going to function."

Santa Clara County, California

On February 3, 2017, Santa Clara County, California, sued the Trump administration for its executive order that cities declaring themselves sanctuary cities were "not eligible to receive Federal grants, except as deemed necessary for law enforcement purposes by the Attorney General or the Secretary." The suit challenged the order's constitutionality in four distinct charges, claiming that the executive order:

• "[S]eizes for the President and the executive branch the power of the federal purse, which belongs exclusively to Congress under Article I, section 8, clause 1 of our federal Constitution."
• "[I]s too vague to provide the County with reasonable notice of what it must do to comply with its terms and avoid unspecified 'enforcement actions.'"
• "[D]enies the County the procedural due process protections afforded to it by the Fifth Amendment."
• "[V]iolates the Tenth Amendment and the federalism principles that animate our governmental structure."

On April 25, 2017, U.S. District Court Judge William Orrick III issued a preliminary injunction blocking the portion of the executive order that cut funding to sanctuary cities. The judge's ruling read, in part, "The Constitution vests the spending power in Congress, not the President, so the Order cannot constitutionally place new conditions on federal funds."

Seattle, Washington

• On March 29, 2017 the city of Seattle, Washington, sued the Trump administration over the administration's policies toward sanctuary cities. Seattle Mayor Ed Murray said the suit concerned Trump's January 25, 2017, executive order that ended federal funding for sanctuary jurisdictions. Murray said, "Seattle will not be bullied by this White House or this administration, and today we are taking legal action against President Trump’s unconstitutional order. We have the law on our side: The federal government cannot compel our police department to enforce federal immigration law and cannot use our federal dollars to coerce Seattle into turning our backs on our immigrant and refugee communities. We simply won’t do it."

Local calls for impeachment

In May 2017, Politico reported that at least ten local governments across the country had passed resolutions calling for Trump's impeachment. Free Speech for the People, a group out of Amherst, Massachusetts, organized a guide for local governments on how to draft the resolutions. Although local governments do not have authority to impeach the president, the resolutions were written to pressure members of the U.S. House to begin the impeachment process. According to Politico, the following local governments had passed impeachment resolutions as of May 2017:

• Cambridge, Massachusetts
• Brookline, Massachusetts
• Amherst, Massachusetts
• Pelham, Massachusetts
• Leverett, Massachusetts
• Los Angeles, California
• Richmond, California
• Alameda, California
• Berkeley, California

Chicago, Illinois

• On August 7, 2017, the city of Chicago sued the Trump administration over a Justice Department policy change that made self-designated sanctuary cities ineligible for certain law enforcement grants from the federal government. The department regulations were designed to require local jurisdictions to give federal immigration officers 48 hours before releasing a detainee who is wanted by federal immigration enforcement. Ed Siskel, a senior legal advisor for Mayor Rahm Emanuel said of the lawsuit, "We are bringing this legal challenge because the rhetoric, the threats from this administration embodied in these new conditions imposed on unrelated public safety grants funds are breeding a culture and climate of fear."
  • Los Angeles, California; San Francisco, California; and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, filed similar lawsuits against the Justice Department over this particular rule concerning department grants.

See also

• Opposition to the Trump administration