President Donald Trump stated on Tuesday that beginning February 1, he will withhold federal funding from any states that contain local governments opposing his administration’s immigration policies, extending prior threats to cut off resources to the so-called sanctuary cities themselves.
Such a move could have extensive effects nationwide, possibly even in areas not especially welcoming to non-citizens.
Two prior attempts by Trump to cut off certain funding for sanctuary jurisdictions were blocked by courts.
Trump introduced this concept during a speech on Tuesday at the Detroit Economic Club, presented later in the event, without providing details.
“Starting Feb. 1, we’re not making any payments to sanctuary cities or states having sanctuary cities, because they do everything possible to protect criminals at the expense of American citizens and it breeds fraud and crime and all of the other problems that come,” he said. “So we’re not making any payment to anybody that supports sanctuary cities.”
Back in Washington, when reporters asked Trump what types of funding would be affected on February 1, he replied, “You’ll see. It’ll be significant.”
There is no strict definition for , but the terms generally describe limited cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Courts have rejected the idea before
In an executive order last year, the president instructed federal officials to withhold funds from sanctuary jurisdictions that aim to protect individuals in the country illegally from deportation.
A California-based despite government lawyers saying it was too early to stop the plan when no action had been taken and no specific conditions had been laid out.
In Trump’s first term in office, in 2017, his effort to cut funding to the cities.
Some of the details are tricky
The Justice Department released a states, cities and counties that it considers to be sanctuary jurisdictions last year.
The list is predominantly composed of locations governed by Democrats, including the states of California, Connecticut, and New York; cities like Boston and New York; and counties such as Baltimore County, Maryland, and Cook County, Illinois.
That list replaced an that was met with pushback from officials who said it wasn’t clear why their jurisdictions were on it.
The administration has been threatening funding in specific places
The federal government has taken steps to for a variety of programs in recent weeks and is already encountering legal challenges.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has notified states that refused to provide data on recipients of money that their administrative funds will be reduced. A court battle over the request for information was already ongoing before the threat, and funding has not been halted yet.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said last week that it was stopping funding to five Democratic-led states for to low-income families with children due to unspecified fraud concerns. A court paused this action.
The administration has attempted to apply additional financial pressure on Minnesota, a state where it has also deployed a surge of federal officers in an . The Agriculture Department has announced it is freezing funding in the state—though without providing many details.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services also informed Minnesota last week that it intends to withhold $515 million every three months from 14 Medicaid programs classified as “high risk” after the state rejected a corrective action plan demanded due to fraud allegations. This amount equals one-quarter of the federal funding for those programs. State officials announced on Tuesday that they are appealing.