Trump moves to block funding for sanctuary cities

Donald Trump is once again going after funding for sanctuary cities.

Unfortunately, his move will be defeated, as we need Congress to get this legislation to hold these cities accountable.

Freezing the funding

On Monday, Donald Trump signed new executive orders targeting sanctuary city funding.

One order stated, “Immediately following each publication… the Attorney General and the Secretary of Homeland Security shall notify each sanctuary jurisdiction regarding its defiance of Federal immigration law enforcement and any potential violations of Federal criminal law.”

The order continues that if the cities do not change their laws immediately, “the Attorney General and the Secretary of Homeland Security shall pursue all necessary legal remedies and enforcement measures to end these violations and bring such jurisdictions into compliance with the laws of the United States.”

The problem… to this point, the president does not have the authority to block funding already approved by Congress, so these orders were a complete and utter waste of time.

Already defeated

To that point, and as we have seen in the past with Trump orders regarding holding back federal funding, the orders were immediately challenged and defeated in court.

After Trump suffered several legal defeats on Monday, White House Spokesperson Anna Kelly stated, "President Trump has the legal right to restore accountability to the entire executive branch."

Only he doesn’t, at least not yet.

This could all change if Congress legislates a new law regarding sanctuary cities or if the Supreme Court decides that establishing a sanctuary city is illegal because immigration falls under the purview of the federal government, not local governments.

Legislate it

There is a piece of legislation working its way through the House now called the Law Enforcement Solidarity Act, sponsored by Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-NY).

Tenney, on the new bill, stated, “Law enforcement officers who respond to the emergency call from their fellow officers should be celebrated, not chastised. Yet, Rochester city officials are seeking to penalize the RPD officers who quickly responded to assist ICE during a traffic stop, simply because of Rochester’s unlawful sanctuary city policies.”

Generally speaking, I am against statement legislation, which I classify as legislation being presented that has no chance of passing, but this one is different. Trump is getting clobbered in polling right now, partly because he is losing the challenges to his orders, which, by current law, are unconstitutional and illegal.

He needs to flip that by Congress putting Democrats on record voting against the very legislation that Trump vowed to put in action, not executive orders. If he can do that, he can stop whining about the courts and call out Democrats for not supporting legislation that the majority of American people voted to have put in place during the most recent election. This is not brain surgery, yet it still has not sunk into Trump’s head that his orders are doing more harm than good, not to mention the millions of dollars being wasted defending orders that literally have no chance of winning, even before the Supreme Court.