Trump administration sues LA, Mayor Bass and City Council over sanctuary city immigration policies

LOS ANGELES (CNS) — The Trump administration Monday sued the city of Los Angeles, Mayor Karen Bass and the City Council over L.A.’s so-called “sanctuary city” policies, alleging in federal court that the ordinance violates the Constitution by “thwarting” immigration enforcement.

The lawsuit contends that the sanctuary laws — in which local law enforcement officials refuse to assist immigration enforcement efforts — are illegal, and expressly designed to “obstruct the federal government’s enforcement of federal immigration law and impede consultation and communication between federal, state, and local law enforcement officials that is necessary for federal officials to carry out federal immigration law and keep Americans safe.”

According to the federal government, then-candidate Donald J. Trump campaigned and won the presidential election in 2024 “on a platform of deporting the millions of illegal immigrants the previous administration permitted, through its open borders policy, to enter the country unlawfully.

“Days after now President Trump won the Nov. 5, 2024 election, the Los Angeles City Council, wishing to thwart the will of the American people regarding deportations, began the process of codifying into law its sanctuary city policies.”

Messages sent to representatives of Bass, the City Attorney’s Office and Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson seeking comment were not immediately answered.

The lawsuit alleges that L.A.’s sanctuary policies resulted in lawlessness, rioting, looting and vandalism.

Responding to the lawsuit, L.A. City Councilman Hugo Soto-Martinez, a co-author of the ordinance, said “Trump is tearing families apart and he’s trying to force every city and town to help him carry out his white nationalist agenda. We refuse to stand by and let Donald Trump deport innocent families. We’re going to do everything within our power to keep families together.”

In a statement, Attorney General Pam Bondi blamed sanctuary policies for the recent violence surrounding federal immigration raids in the Southland.

Sanctuary policies were the driving cause of the violence, chaos, and attacks on law enforcement that Americans recently witnessed in Los Angeles,” she said. “Jurisdictions like Los Angeles that flout federal law by prioritizing illegal aliens over American citizens are undermining law enforcement at every level — it ends under President Trump.”

The filing in U.S. District Court in downtown Los Angeles seeks to have Los Angeles’ policies declared invalid based on the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause, which “prohibits the city and its officials from obstructing the federal government’s ability to enforce laws that Congress has enacted or to take actions entrusted to it by the Constitution,” the suit states.

Bill Essayli, U.S. Attorney in Los Angeles, said the lawsuit “holds the city of Los Angeles accountable for deliberately obstructing the enforcement of federal immigration law.”

“The United States Constitution’s Supremacy Clause prohibits the city from picking and choosing which federal laws will be enforced and which will not,” Essayli said in a statement. “By assisting removable aliens in evading federal law enforcement, the city’s unlawful and discriminatory ordinance has contributed to a lawless and unsafe environment that this lawsuit will help end.”

The city’s sanctuary policies generally prohibit local resources — most notably police officers — from taking part in federal immigration enforcement efforts. The policies generally mirror state law that bar local cooperation with federal authorities except in cases involving serious or violent crimes.

“It’s one thing not to aid us. It’s another thing to interfere and obstruct and discriminate against us and that’s what this lawsuit is about. When they allow every other agency to enter their buildings and their spaces except immigration agents, that’s discrimination,” said Essayli. “They’ll allow the FBI in, but they won’t allow ICE agents in so they’re discriminating about which agents can enter what buildings.”

We need them to not get in our way. We need to be able to access information they have in their possession and get into these government spaces,” Essayli added.

Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of UC Berkeley School of Law, tells Eyewitness News a city can’t interfere with federal law enforcement, but that a city doesn’t have to cooperate with federal law enforcement.

“This is an ongoing political battle between the Trump administration’s immigration policies and the city of Los Angeles which has a very different view. I think this complaint is an attempt to use the legal system to make a political point by the Trump administration,” said Chemerinsky.

“Legally, this is a very weak lawsuit Legally, this is a very weak lawsuit. Because the federal government can’t force the city to use its resources for federal immigration enforcement purposes,” he added.

Numerous other cities have also adopted sanctuary policies, including Long Beach, Pasadena, Santa Ana and West Hollywood.

Trump has frequently criticized such cities, even threatening to withhold federal funding from local governments that adopt sanctuary policies.