Limit to Presidential Unilateralism: The Trump Administration Cannot Use General Federal Funds to Pressure Sanctuary Jurisdictions Into Civil Immigration Enforcement

Illegal Immigration—Sanctuary Cities and Jurisdictions—Spending Clause—Separation of Powers—Anti-Commandeering—Local Autonomy—Fifth Amendment—Due Process—Administrative Procedure Act—Doctrinal Continuity.

This commentary analyzes Judge William H. Orrick’s April 24, 2025 preliminary injunction blocking the Trump administration from withholding, freezing, or conditioning federal funds to a group of plaintiff cities and counties because of their sanctuary policies. The order is short and explicitly described as a summary order issued under exigent circumstances, but it rests on a substantial body of prior litigation concerning sanctuary jurisdictions, federal spending conditions, anti-commandeering doctrine, due process, and the Administrative Procedure Act. Its importance lies less in novelty than in constitutional continuity: it treats the second Trump administration’s 2025 sanctuary-funding strategy as the functional continuation of the first Trump administration’s Executive Order 13,768, which the same court and the Ninth Circuit rejected in 2017–2018.

Jack R. Mangala

A. Facts and Ruling

The plaintiffs were the City and County of San Francisco, Santa Clara County, and fourteen additional cities and counties: Portland, King County, New Haven, Oakland, Emeryville, San Jose, San Diego, Sacramento, Santa Cruz, Monterey County, Seattle, Minneapolis, St. Paul, and Santa Fe. They challenged two executive orders and a Department of Justice memorandum: Executive Order 14159, titled “Protecting the American People Against Invasion”; Executive Order 14218, titled “Ending Taxpayer Subsidization of Open Borders”; and the February 5, 2025 memorandum from Attorney General Pamela Bondi titled “Sanctuary Jurisdictions Directives.” Judge Orrick described the challenged provisions as aimed at cities and counties that limit the use of local resources to enforce federal immigration law.

The contested policy architecture had three moving parts. First, section 17 of Executive Order 14159 directed the Attorney General and the Secretary of Homeland Security to ensure that so-called sanctuary jurisdictions did not receive access to federal funds. Second, section 2(a)(ii) of Executive Order 14218 directed federal agencies to ensure that federal payments to localities did not, by design or effect, abet sanctuary policies that shield noncitizens from deportation. Third, the Bondi Directive supplied administrative detail and political force by instructing various entities within the Department of Justice (DOJ) to pursue funding restrictions and enforcement measures against jurisdictions deemed insufficiently cooperative. The order emphasized that neither executive order gave a stable definition of sanctuary jurisdiction, but that the Bondi Directive, agency memoranda, public statements, and parallel enforcement actions made the threat concrete enough for judicial review.

The plaintiffs sought a preliminary injunction preventing the federal government from withholding, freezing, or conditioning funds on the basis of local policies that limit: honoring civil immigration detainers; cooperating with administrative immigration warrants; sharing information other than immigration or citizenship status; using local law enforcement to arrest or detain individuals solely for civil immigration violations; or using local resources to assist federal civil immigration enforcement. Their theory was not that local governments can obstruct federal immigration enforcement. Rather, it was that the federal government cannot conscript local governments into such enforcement by threatening broad, congressionally appropriated funding streams.

Judge Orrick granted the preliminary injunction. Applying Winter v. Natural Resources Defense Council and the Ninth Circuit’s sliding-scale approach, he found that the plaintiffs were likely to succeed on several constitutional and statutory theories, that they faced irreparable harm, and that the balance of equities and public interest favored relief. The injunction restrained the named federal defendants, agencies, officials, and those acting in concert with them from directly or indirectly withholding, freezing, or conditioning federal funds from the plaintiff jurisdictions based on the challenged portions of the executive orders and the Bondi Directive. The order required written notice to all federal departments and agencies by April 28, 2025, instructing them not to implement the prohibited funding restrictions.

The ruling is also notable for its treatment of justiciability. The government argued that the case was premature because no funds had yet been withdrawn and because the orders merely called for lawful evaluation by agencies. Judge Orrick rejected that argument as essentially the same position advanced in the 2017 sanctuary-funding litigation. He reasoned that the plaintiffs had pre-enforcement standing because they had policies placing them within the target category and faced a well-founded fear of enforcement. In his view, that fear was stronger than in 2017 because it rested not only on the text of the executive orders but also on the Bondi Directive, agency actions, lawsuits against other sanctuary jurisdictions, public statements by senior officials, and the history of the first Trump administration litigation.

The opinion’s most quoted sentence, “Here we are again,”[i] captures the court’s basic posture. Judge Orrick treated the 2025 orders as materially similar to the invalidated 2017 order. The government tried to distinguish the new language by pointing to qualifiers such as “evaluate and undertake any lawful actions.” The court called this a distinction without a difference: in context, the provisions still “unambiguously command[ed] action”[ii] to deny federal funds to disfavored localities, and a general savings clause did not insulate the policy from judicial review.

B. Legal Discussion

1. Separation of Powers and the Spending Clause

The heart of the decision is the allocation of spending authority. Under Article I, Congress controls the federal purse. The President may execute spending statutes, but he may not rewrite them by adding sweeping conditions after appropriations have been enacted. Judge Orrick relied heavily on the Ninth Circuit’s earlier decision in City and County of San Francisco v. Trump, 897 F.3d 1225 (9th Cir. 2018), which held that the 2017 sanctuary order could not impose conditions on federal grants absent congressional authorization. This principle is especially important where the executive order appears to reach all or a broad class of federal funding, rather than a narrow program with clear statutory immigration-enforcement conditions.

The Spending Clause issue has two dimensions. First, Congress must speak clearly when it conditions federal funds so that recipients can knowingly accept the terms. This clear-statement principle runs through Pennhurst State School & Hospital v. Halderman, South Dakota v. Dole, and Arlington Central School District Board of Education v. Murphy. Second, even congressionally enacted conditions may become unconstitutional if they are coercive, as National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius held in the Medicaid-expansion context. Judge Orrick’s order emphasizes the first point most directly: the challenged conditions were not shown to have been enacted by Congress and were instead imposed by executive directive.

The decision therefore does not deny Congress power to condition some grants on immigration-related cooperation. It says that such conditions must come from Congress, must be germane to the relevant federal program, must be unambiguous, and must not be coercive. A city that accepts a specifically conditioned federal law-enforcement grant may have to comply with the valid conditions attached to that grant. But an executive order cannot transform all federal payments into leverage for unrelated immigration enforcement objectives. This distinction preserves Congress’s power to legislate while limiting presidential unilateralism.

2. Anti-Commandeering and Local Autonomy

The Tenth Amendment claim complements the spending analysis. Under New York v. United States, Printz v. United States, and Murphy v. NCAA, the federal government may not commandeer state or local officials to administer or enforce federal regulatory programs. Immigration is unquestionably an area of strong federal authority, but the supremacy of federal immigration law does not erase the anti-commandeering rule. Federal officers may enforce federal immigration law; local governments may be preempted from obstructing that enforcement; but the federal government cannot require local personnel to carry out civil immigration detainers, administrative warrants, or enforcement operations unless a valid federal law imposes a permissible obligation.

Judge Orrick’s injunction reflects this distinction. The protected local policies do not purport to legalize unauthorized presence or nullify federal law. They regulate the use of local personnel, local detention facilities, local funds, and local information-sharing practices. The court viewed the funding threat as an attempt to coerce local jurisdictions into changing those policies and thereby to commandeer local officials into the federal civil immigration system. The coercive character was amplified by the breadth of the threatened funding consequences and by the absence of a precise statutory hook.

One doctrinal complication is 8 U.S.C. section 1373, which prohibits restrictions on sending to or receiving from federal immigration authorities information regarding citizenship or immigration status.[iii] Sanctuary litigation has often turned on how far section 1373 reaches and whether it is itself constitutional after Murphy. Judge Orrick’s order carefully framed the injunction to protect local limits on information sharing other than immigration or citizenship status. That phrasing reduces conflict with section 1373 and focuses the injunction on the broader detainer, administrative-warrant, resource-allocation, and local-enforcement issues.

3. Fifth Amendment Vagueness and Due Process

The Fifth Amendment reasoning is also significant. A funding sanction that turns on the label “sanctuary jurisdiction” raises notice problems if that label is undefined, politically elastic, or applied through shifting agency criteria. Due process requires fair notice of the conduct that triggers legal consequences, especially when the consequence is the loss of public funds relied upon for budgeting, public safety, health, housing, and social services. Judge Orrick found the challenged policy likely vague because the executive orders did not define sanctuary jurisdiction and because the administration’s statements suggested a broad and fluid target category.

The vagueness concern is not merely semantic. Local governments manage complex budgets across multi-year cycles. If they cannot determine which policies imperil which funding streams, they face pressure to abandon lawful local priorities simply to avoid catastrophic uncertainty. That chilling effect matters in constitutional analysis because it converts ambiguity into coercion. The court connected this uncertainty to irreparable harm, including budgetary disruption, deprivation of constitutional rights, and damage to trust between local governments and immigrant communities.

4. Administrative Procedure Act and Ultra Vires Agency Action

Although the April 24 order was a summary order, it expressly found a likelihood of success on the plaintiffs’ Administrative Procedure Act (APA) claim. The court described the Bondi Directive’s order to freeze DOJ funds as likely arbitrary and capricious, contrary to the Constitution, and ultra vires final agency action under 5 U.S.C. section 706(2).[iv] This matters because it gives the ruling a statutory as well as constitutional foundation. If an agency implements a presidential immigration agenda by disregarding statutory limits on grants, failing to consider reliance interests, or adopting unexplained categorical funding freezes, the APA provides a vehicle for review independent of the constitutional claims.

The APA point is also practically important. Executive orders often speak in broad terms, while agencies translate those commands into grant notices, memoranda, audits, certifications, and award conditions. Sanctuary-funding litigation therefore occurs at the boundary between presidential direction and agency implementation. A court may hesitate to enjoin the President personally, and Judge Orrick explicitly did not enjoin the President in the performance of official duties. But the court may enjoin agencies and officials implementing unlawful directives, and it may set aside final agency action that exceeds statutory authority or violates reasoned decision-making requirements.

5. Scope of Relief After Trump v. CASA

Judge Orrick’s order should be read against the Supreme Court’s later skepticism toward universal injunctions in Trump v. CASA, Inc. The April 24 injunction protects the plaintiff jurisdictions and those acting in concert under Rule 65(d)(2)[v]; it is not framed as a universal injunction for every sanctuary jurisdiction in the country. That narrower posture may help the order survive in a post-CASA remedial environment. At the same time, the order required notice to all federal departments and agencies, which is necessary to make plaintiff-specific relief effective when many agencies administer funds. The remedial question, therefore, is not whether the order is nationwide in ambition, but whether its breadth is necessary to prevent injury to the parties before the court.

The strongest feature of the decision is doctrinal continuity. The 2025 order sits squarely on the Ninth Circuit’s 2018 sanctuary-funding precedent and on classic federalism and spending cases. Its vulnerability is that it is a preliminary injunction, based on a summary order, before a full merits record and before appellate review. A higher court could narrow the injunction, distinguish between various grants, or demand a more program-specific analysis of funding streams. But the government’s broadest theory—that the executive may use general federal funds to pressure localities into civil immigration enforcement—faces serious doctrinal obstacles under existing separation-of-powers, Spending Clause, anti-commandeering, due process, and APA principles.

C. Suggested Reading

To read the case: City and County of San Francisco et al. v. Donald J. Trump et al., 779 F. Supp. 3d 1077 (N.D. Cal. 2025). This commentary focuses on that April 24, 2025 decision, while noting later remedial considerations and related sanctuary-funding doctrine.

Case Law

The following cases provide the most useful doctrinal context for reading Judge Orrick’s decision. They are organized by theme rather than chronology.

1. Sanctuary-Jurisdiction Litigation

• County of Santa Clara v. Trump, 250 F. Supp. 3d 497 (N.D. Cal. 2017). Judge Orrick’s first preliminary injunction against the first Trump administration’s sanctuary-funding executive order; central for standing, separation of powers, Spending Clause, vagueness, and anti-commandeering analysis.
• City and County of San Francisco v. Trump, 897 F.3d 1225 (9th Cir. 2018). The Ninth Circuit affirmance that supplies much of the controlling precedent for the 2025 order, especially the conclusion that a general executive order cannot impose new grant conditions that Congress did not authorize.
• City of Chicago v. Sessions, 888 F.3d 272 (7th Cir. 2018), and City of Chicago v. Barr, 961 F.3d 882 (7th Cir. 2020). Important Seventh Circuit litigation over DOJ Byrne JAG grant conditions, local cooperation, and section 1373.
• City of Philadelphia v. Attorney General, 916 F.3d 276 (3d Cir. 2019). A leading Third Circuit decision rejecting DOJ efforts to impose immigration-cooperation conditions on federal criminal justice grants absent statutory authority.
• New York v. United States Department of Justice, 951 F.3d 84 (2d Cir. 2020). A contrasting Second Circuit decision that upheld certain DOJ conditions and illustrates the pre-2021 circuit split over sanctuary grant conditions.

2. Spending Clause and Unconstitutional Conditions

• Pennhurst State School & Hospital v. Halderman, 451 U.S. 1 (1981). Establishes the clear-statement principle for federal grant conditions imposed on states.
• South Dakota v. Dole, 483 U.S. 203 (1987). The classic framework for conditional federal spending: general welfare, unambiguous conditions, relatedness, no independent constitutional bar, and no coercion.
• Arlington Central School District Board of Education v. Murphy, 548 U.S. 291 (2006). Reinforces that recipients must have clear notice of conditions attached to federal funds.
• National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius, 567 U.S. 519 (2012). The leading modern coercion case, holding that Congress cannot use financial inducement so severe that it becomes compulsion.

3. Anti-Commandeering and Immigration Federalism

• New York v. United States, 505 U.S. 144 (1992). Establishes that Congress may not compel states to enact or administer a federal regulatory program.
• Printz v. United States, 521 U.S. 898 (1997). Applies anti-commandeering to state and local executive officers, a key precedent for sanctuary policies declining to use local officers for federal enforcement.
• Murphy v. NCAA, 584 U.S. 453 (2018). Modernizes anti-commandeering doctrine and raises questions about the constitutional status of federal statutes that regulate state information-sharing policies.
• Arizona v. United States, 567 U.S. 387 (2012). Essential background on federal supremacy in immigration, preemption, and the limits of state immigration enforcement initiatives.

4. Remedies and Judicial Review

• Winter v. Natural Resources Defense Council, 555 U.S. 7 (2008). The governing preliminary-injunction test used by Judge Orrick.
• Franklin v. Massachusetts, 505 U.S. 788 (1992). Relevant to the court’s refusal to enjoin the President personally while allowing relief against subordinate officials.
• Trump v. CASA, Inc., 606 U.S. (2025). Important for the remedial landscape after the sanctuary order, especially limitations on universal injunctions and the need to tailor relief to the parties.
• 5 U.S.C. sections 705 and 706. The APA provisions governing postponement of agency action and judicial review of unlawful, arbitrary, capricious, or ultra vires agency action.

Doctrine

• Lasch, C. N., R. L. Chan, I. V. Eagly, D. F. Haynes, A. Lai, E. M. McCormick, and J. P. Stumpf, “Understanding ‘Sanctuary Cities’”, Boston College Law Review 59, no. 5 (2018): 1703–1774.
• Chen, M. H. “Trust in Immigration Enforcement: State Noncooperation and Sanctuary Cities after Secure Communities”, Chicago-Kent Law Review 91, no. 1 (2016): 13–57.
• Gulasekaram, P., R. Su, and R. Cuison Villazor, “Anti-Sanctuary and Immigration Localism”, Columbia Law Review 119, no. 3 (2019): 837–902.
• Armacost, B. E., “‘Sanctuary’ Laws: The New Immigration Federalism”, Michigan State Law Review 2016, no. 4 (2016): 1197–1266.
• Margulies, P., “Deconstructing ‘Sanctuary Cities’: The Legality of Federal Grant Conditions That Require State and Local Cooperation on Immigration Enforcement”, Washington and Lee Law Review 75, no. 3 (2018): 1507–1582.
• Bauder, H., “Sanctuary Cities: Policies and Practices in International Perspective”, International Migration 55, no. 2 (2017): 174–187.

To cite this contribution: J. R. Mangala, “Limits to presidential unilateralism: the Trump administration cannot use general federal funds to pressure sanctuary jurisdictions into civil immigration enforcement”, Cahiers de l’EDEM, June 2026.