A judge ruled late Friday the Trump administration cannot deny funding to Boston, Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles and 30 other cities and counties because of policies that limit cooperation with federal immigration efforts.
US District Judge William Orrick in San Francisco extended a preliminary injunction blocking the administration from cutting off or conditioning the use of federal funds for so-called “sanctuary” jurisdictions. His earlier order protected more than a dozen other cities and counties, including San Francisco, Portland and Seattle.
An email to the White House late Friday was not immediately returned. In his ruling, Orrick said the administration had offered no opposition to an extended injunction except to say the first injunction was wrong. It has appealed the first order.
Orrick also blocked the administration from imposing immigration-related conditions on two particular grant programs.
The Trump administration has ratcheted up pressure on sanctuary communities as it seeks to make good on President Donald Trump’s campaign promise to remove millions of people in the country illegally.
One executive order issued by Trump directs Attorney General Pam Bondi and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to withhold federal money from sanctuary jurisdictions. Another order directs every federal agency to ensure that payments to state and local governments do not “abet so-called ‘sanctuary’ policies that seek to shield illegal aliens from deportation.”
The cities and counties that sued said billions of dollars were at risk.
Orrick, who was nominated by President Barack Obama, said the executive orders and the “executive actions that have parroted them” were an unconstitutional “coercive threat.”
In May, the Department of Homeland Security published a list of more than 500 “sanctuary jurisdictions,” saying each one would receive formal notification that the government had deemed them noncompliant. It also said it would inform them if they were believed to be in violation of any federal criminal statutes.
The list was later removed from the department’s website after critics noted it included localities that have actively supported the administration’s tough immigration policies.
The Justice Department has also sued New York, Los Angeles and other cities over their sanctuary policies.
There is no strict definition for sanctuary cities, but the terms generally describe places that limit cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. ICE enforces immigration laws nationwide but seeks help from state and local authorities to identify immigrants wanted for deportation and hold them for federal officers.
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Judge blocks Trump from cutting funding from 34 cities and counties over ‘sanctuary’ policies
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Judge blocks Trump from cutting funding from 34 cities and counties over ‘sanctuary’ policies
- The Trump administration has been trying to remove millions of people in the country illegally
- District Judge William Orrick said Trump's “executive actions” were an unconstitutional “coercive threat”
Austria turns Hitler’s home into a police station
BRAUNAU AM INN: Turning the house where Adolf Hitler was born into a police station has raised mixed emotions in his Austrian hometown.
“It’s a double-edged sword,” said Sibylle Treiblmaier, outside the house in the town of Braunau am Inn on the border with Germany.
While it might discourage far-right extremists from gathering at the site, it could have “been used better or differently,” the 53-year-old office assistant told AFP.
The government wants to “neutralize” the site and passed a law in 2016 to take control of the dilapidated building from its private owner.
Austria — which was annexed by Hitler’s Germany in 1938 — has repeatedly been criticized in the past for not fully acknowledging its responsibility in the Holocaust.
The far-right Freedom Party, founded by former Nazis, is ahead in the polls after getting the most votes in a national election for the first time in 2024, though it failed to form a government.
Last year, two streets in Braunau am Inn commemorating Nazis were renamed after years of complaints by activists.
- ‘Problematic’ -
The house where Hitler was born on April 20, 1889, and lived for a short period of his early life, is right in the center of town on a narrow shop-lined street.
A memorial stone in front reads: “For Peace, Freedom and Democracy. Never Again Fascism. Millions of Dead Warn.”
When AFP visited this week, workers were putting the finishing touches to the renovated facade.
Officers are scheduled to move in during “the second quarter of 2026,” the interior ministry said.
But for author Ludwig Laher, a member of the Mauthausen Committee Austria that represents Holocaust victims, “a police station is problematic, as the police... are obliged, in every political system, to protect what the state wants.”
An earlier idea to turn the house into a place where people would come together to discuss peace-building had “received a lot of support,” he told AFP.
Jasmin Stadler, a 34-year-old shop owner and Braunau native, said it would have been interesting to put Hitler’s birth in the house in a “historic context,” explaining more about the house.
She also slammed the 20-million-euro ($24-million) cost of the rebuild.
- ‘Bit of calm’ -
But others are in favor of the redesign of the house, which many years ago was rented by the interior ministry and housed a center for people with disabilities before it fell into disrepair.
Wolfgang Leithner, a 57-year-old electrical engineer, said turning it into a police station would “hopefully bring a bit of calm,” avoiding it becoming a shrine for far-right extremists.
“It makes sense to use the building and give it to the police, to the public authorities,” he said.
The office of Braunau’s conservative mayor declined an AFP request for comment.
Throughout Austria, debate on how to address the country’s Holocaust history has repeatedly flared.
Some 65,000 Austrian Jews were killed and 130,000 forced into exile during Nazi rule.
“It’s a double-edged sword,” said Sibylle Treiblmaier, outside the house in the town of Braunau am Inn on the border with Germany.
While it might discourage far-right extremists from gathering at the site, it could have “been used better or differently,” the 53-year-old office assistant told AFP.
The government wants to “neutralize” the site and passed a law in 2016 to take control of the dilapidated building from its private owner.
Austria — which was annexed by Hitler’s Germany in 1938 — has repeatedly been criticized in the past for not fully acknowledging its responsibility in the Holocaust.
The far-right Freedom Party, founded by former Nazis, is ahead in the polls after getting the most votes in a national election for the first time in 2024, though it failed to form a government.
Last year, two streets in Braunau am Inn commemorating Nazis were renamed after years of complaints by activists.
- ‘Problematic’ -
The house where Hitler was born on April 20, 1889, and lived for a short period of his early life, is right in the center of town on a narrow shop-lined street.
A memorial stone in front reads: “For Peace, Freedom and Democracy. Never Again Fascism. Millions of Dead Warn.”
When AFP visited this week, workers were putting the finishing touches to the renovated facade.
Officers are scheduled to move in during “the second quarter of 2026,” the interior ministry said.
But for author Ludwig Laher, a member of the Mauthausen Committee Austria that represents Holocaust victims, “a police station is problematic, as the police... are obliged, in every political system, to protect what the state wants.”
An earlier idea to turn the house into a place where people would come together to discuss peace-building had “received a lot of support,” he told AFP.
Jasmin Stadler, a 34-year-old shop owner and Braunau native, said it would have been interesting to put Hitler’s birth in the house in a “historic context,” explaining more about the house.
She also slammed the 20-million-euro ($24-million) cost of the rebuild.
- ‘Bit of calm’ -
But others are in favor of the redesign of the house, which many years ago was rented by the interior ministry and housed a center for people with disabilities before it fell into disrepair.
Wolfgang Leithner, a 57-year-old electrical engineer, said turning it into a police station would “hopefully bring a bit of calm,” avoiding it becoming a shrine for far-right extremists.
“It makes sense to use the building and give it to the police, to the public authorities,” he said.
The office of Braunau’s conservative mayor declined an AFP request for comment.
Throughout Austria, debate on how to address the country’s Holocaust history has repeatedly flared.
Some 65,000 Austrian Jews were killed and 130,000 forced into exile during Nazi rule.
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