By Andy Rose, CNN
(CNN) — It was billed as an address on economic successes, but President Donald Trump’s speech last Tuesday in Detroit also focused on economic punishment for communities that don’t help him with his immigration agenda.
“Starting February 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,” Trump said.
Trump did not make clear exactly what he meant by the withholding of “payments” and whether that could include spending like Medicaid funds and education grants. When reporters on the tarmac at Joint Base Andrews last Tuesday asked Trump what funding he is threatening, he simply replied, “You’ll see.”
Trump’s threat is a broader version of one his administration has made many times already, attempting to cut funding to local governments it declared as “sanctuary jurisdictions,” but those efforts have been stopped repeatedly by judges.
It’s a battle with high stakes for local governments, who say their ability to respond to emergencies, improve infrastructure and protect children from abuse are among the programs imperiled by the threat to cut off funds.
“We’ve beaten the administration in court before — and we’re not afraid to keep doing so,” Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker of Illinois posted on X last week.
As the president raises the stakes again, here is a look at the lengthy history of his financial threats to immigration opponents.
What is a sanctuary jurisdiction?
There is no federal legal definition for a city, state or county to have a sanctuary designation. When the Department of Justice created its own list in 2025, it said its definition includes places with policies “that obstruct or limit local law enforcement cooperation with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement,” restrict immigration agents from interviewing detainees in local jails and provide benefits to illegal immigrants.
That includes communities where law enforcement is prohibited from responding to a “detainer,” a request from immigration enforcement to keep a person who is already detained in a local jail for up to 48 additional hours so federal agents can take custody of the suspect.
The US Supreme Court has never weighed in directly on whether local agencies have to cooperate with a detainer. A federal appeals court ruled in 2014 that detainer requests were voluntary and law enforcement could be held liable for holding suspects at ICE request if that request turned out to be unfounded. But a different appeals court upheld a Texas law in 2018 requiring local authorities in that state to cooperate with ICE requests.
The creation of the sanctuary jurisdiction list proved to be controversial at first, even with many supporters of the president’s immigration policy. It initially included hundreds of cities and counties in 35 states and Washington, DC, including solid red states like Tennessee and North Dakota. The city of Las Vegas was also included, despite officials stating it has never been a sanctuary city.
“In fact, Mayor Shelley Berkley has said numerous times on the record that Las Vegas is not a sanctuary city, and that law enforcement and jail facilities here comply with federal law,” the Democratic mayor said in a statement on X at the time.
Both the National Association of Counties and the National League of Cities asked for clarification of how the Department of Homeland Security made its determination for each community, but none was provided before the list was substantially pared down.
The administration’s sanctuary jurisdiction list, last revised October 31, currently includes 18 cities and 12 states, including New York, Illinois, California and Minnesota – a state roiled by protests following the dramatic intensification of immigration enforcement in Minneapolis and the fatal shooting of a woman by a federal agent.
The list “is being constantly reviewed and can be changed at any time and will be updated regularly,” DHS told CNN in a June statement.
Trump’s early funding fight against sanctuary cities
California is one of the few states that has openly embraced the “sanctuary” label. A law passed in 2017 that put significant restrictions on cooperating with federal immigration officials was called the “sanctuary state law” by supporters and opponents alike, although that it was not its official name.
“San Francisco is a sanctuary city and will not waver in its commitment to protect the rights of all its residents,” then-Mayor Edwin Lee, a Democrat, said earlier that year, shortly before Trump’s first inauguration.
Trump was making threats to cut funding even before he first took office.
“Block funding for sanctuary cities … no more funding,” Trump said in a campaign speech in Phoenix on August 31, 2016.
Five days after Trump’s first inauguration in 2017, he signed an executive order giving the secretary of Homeland Security the authority for the first time to name a location as a “sanctuary jurisdiction” and said those locations “are not eligible to receive Federal grants, except as deemed necessary for law enforcement purposes by the Attorney General or the Secretary.”
Then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced two months later he would require any jurisdiction asking for Department of Justice grants to “certify compliance” that they were cooperating with immigration authorities. He also promised to “take all lawful steps to claw-back any funds awarded to a jurisdiction that willfully violates (federal immigration law).”
But the administration’s efforts to stop the flow of federal money to largely Democratic cities were quickly tied up in court.
“This executive order was unconstitutional before the ink on it was even dry,” said Dennis Herrera, who was San Francisco’s city attorney at the time.
In November 2017, San Francisco-based federal Judge William Orrick agreed, banning the Trump administration from blocking those grants nationwide.
“The Executive Order uses coercive means in an attempt to force states and local jurisdictions to honor civil detainer requests,” wrote Orrick, an Obama appointee, “which are voluntary ‘requests’ precisely because the federal government cannot command states to comply with them under the Tenth Amendment.”
Funding threats get broader in Trump’s second term
As Trump began his second term, the effort to punish cities that don’t cooperate with immigration agents quickly resumed. Once again, Trump signed an executive order “to ensure that so-called ‘sanctuary’ jurisdictions, which seek to interfere with the lawful exercise of Federal law enforcement operations, do not receive access to Federal funds.”
In April, the Department of Homeland Security announced it would reject grant applications that did not include a promise to cooperate with ICE. That included grants from the Federal Emergency Management Agency designed for emergencies and disaster relief.
Several cities and states from Oregon to Connecticut took the administration to court.
“Plaintiffs are not going to stand in the way of lawful federal immigration enforcement,” a lawsuit filed with Orrick said. “But neither are they going to be bullied into abandoning their laws that have made their communities safer or doing what the federal government cannot compel them to do – actively assist the federal government in enforcing federal immigration laws. ”
While a Supreme Court ruling last year made it much more difficult for judges to enter a nationwide injunction as Orrick did in 2017, a federal judge in Rhode Island overturned those conditions for 20 states and Washington, DC in September, saying the administration violated federal law and the Constitution.
“The contested conditions are arbitrary and capricious,” wrote Judge William E. Smith, a George W. Bush nominee.
Smith’s ruling was appealed by the Trump administration. The court has not set a date for a hearing.
Trump’s most recent immigration funding loss in court came when a judge overturned similar conditions on housing, transportation and health grants – conditions tied to not only immigration, but also diversity, equity and inclusion, as well as abortion funding. In August, a federal judge in Seattle issued a preliminary injunction blocking those restrictions, as well.
If Trump follows through on the kitchen sink approach to blocking funding he promised in Detroit, his opponents say the result will be more time in court.
“Trump is a lawless repeat offender who has lost in court in his efforts to withhold funding from pro-public safety, pro-community trust jurisdictions time and time again,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta, a Democrat, said last week on Facebook. “If he tries again, he’ll lose again.”
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