Filed Date: Feb. 3, 2017
Closed Date: Aug. 23, 2019
Clearinghouse coding complete
The County of Santa Clara commenced this lawsuit on February 3, 2017 to challenge President Trump's January 25, 2017 Executive Order (EO), Executive Order 13768. The EO denied federal funding to sanctuary jurisdictions that resist enforcing the federal government’s immigration enforcement policies. Represented by private attorneys, the plaintiff filed the complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California seeking declaratory and injunctive relief.
According to the complaint, the EO purported to allow the federal government to deny the plaintiff federal funding without stipulating qualifications for being a "sanctuary jurisdiction." Further, the EO did not grant the right for judicial review or require the federal government to issue notice to such jurisdiction. Thus, the plaintiff alleged that the EO violated constitutional separation of powers, the Fifth Amendment due process right, and the Tenth Amendment.
The case was reassigned on February 8 to Magistrate Judge Nathanael M. Cousins. However, on Feb. 10, Judge William H. Orrick signed a related case order, connecting this case with a similar one brought by the County and City of San Francisco, IM-CA-0085 in this Clearinghouse; both were assigned to him going forward.
On February 23, Santa Clara moved for a nationwide preliminary injunction prohibiting the government from: 1) enforcing Section 9 of the January 25 Executive Order; 2) taking any action in furtherance of any withholding or conditioning of federal funds pursuant to the EO; and 3) taking any action pursuant to the EO to declare any jurisdiction ineligible for federal funds or deprive any jurisdiction of funds already appropriated or allocated by Congress.
On March 22, many entities moved to file amici briefs in support of the plaintiff. These included the State of California; cities and counties in California and nationwide; individual sheriffs and police chiefs nationwide; technology companies in California; social service, labor, and civil rights organizations, including the Southern Poverty Law Center, the Anti-Defamation League, and local organizations in Santa Clara County; and legal scholars. The superintendent of California's public schools also filed an amicus brief.
On March 23, the defendants moved to combine oral arguments on the preliminary injunction motions in this case and in the related case City and County of San Francisco v. Trump, requesting an April 12 combined hearing. Plaintiff opposed this motion on March 24.
The plaintiff then asked the court for permission to attach four exhibits to its motion for preliminary injunction. These exhibits included recent comments by the White House Press Secretary and recently published detainer reports from ICE, all of which the plaintiff argued contained threats and policies penalizing sanctuary cities. Because of this threat, the plaintiff alleged it had standing and its case was ripe.
Substantively, the plaintiffs argued that the power to condition funds on specified action by local government employees is Congress's, not the President's. An existing statute, 8 U.S.C. §1373, forbids local and state governments from imposing a "gag rule" on their employees that purports to forbid the employees from speaking with federal immigration authorities about the immigration status of any individual. In 2016, the Obama administration had announced that several small immigration-related grant programs would, going forward, be available only to jurisdictions that certified their compliance with §1373; on April 21, 2017, the Trump Administration Attorney General Jeff Sessions confirmed this approach in a letter.
On April 25, 2017 the court entered a nationwide injunction against the EO. The court explained that the federal government had disavowed a robust reading of the EO: It explained for the first time at oral argument that the Order is merely an exercise of the President’s “bully pulpit” to highlight a changed approach to immigration enforcement. Under this interpretation, Section 9(a) applies only to three federal grants in the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security that already have conditions requiring compliance with 8 U.S.C. §1373. This interpretation renders the Order toothless; the Government can already enforce these three grants by the terms of those grants and can enforce 8 U.S.C. §1373 to the extent legally possible under the terms of existing law. Counsel disavowed any right through the Order for the Government to affect any other part of the billions of dollars in federal funds the Counties receive every year.
The court held, however, that the EO "is not reasonably susceptible to the new, narrow interpretation offered at the hearing." Yet a broader reading was, Judge Orrick explained, unconstitutional: "The Constitution vests the spending powers in Congress, not the President, so the Order cannot constitutionally place new conditions on federal funds. Further, the Tenth Amendment requires that conditions on federal funds be unambiguous and timely made; that they bear some relation to the funds at issue; and that the total financial incentive not be coercive. Federal funding that bears no meaningful relationship to immigration enforcement cannot be threatened merely because a jurisdiction chooses an immigration enforcement strategy of which the President disapproves." Accordingly, the court granted a preliminary injunction against any broader implementation of the order, although it emphasized that the preliminary injunction "does not affect the ability of the Attorney General or the Secretary to enforce existing conditions of federal grants or 8 U.S.C. §1373, nor does it impact the Secretary’s ability to develop regulations or other guidance defining what a sanctuary jurisdiction is or designating a jurisdiction as such." County of Santa Clara v. Trump, 250 F. Supp. 3d 497 (N.D. Cal. Apr. 25, 2017).
On May 22, 2017 the defendants moved for leave to file a motion for reconsideration of the court's April 25 injunction. According to the defendants, the Attorney General had issued a memorandum on the EO, specifying that the EO's Section 9(a) could only revoke federal grants administered by DOJ or DHS with grant-eligibility terms that expressly conditioned the funding on compliance with 8 U.S.C. §1373. Thus, the defendants argued that in light of this new authority, the court should reconsider the preliminary injunction because the plaintiffs' claims were not justiciable and its success on the merits was unlikely. The next day, Judge Orrick granted leave to file the motion for reconsideration, which the defendants immediately did.
The defendants filed a motion to dismiss on June 7. They argued that the plaintiff lacked standing and its claims were unripe or non-justiciable. On June 16, the states of West Virginia, Louisiana, Alabama, Arkansas, Michigan, Nevada, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Texas moved for leave to file an amicus brief in support of defendants' motion to dismiss.
On June 28, many organizations, including labor unions, civil rights groups, public schools, and technology companies, as well as individual sheriffs and police chiefs, moved to file amici briefs on behalf of the plaintiff. Additionally, various California cities and counties as well as various states (California, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, and Washington) moved to file amici briefs on behalf of the plaintiff.
On July 20, Judge Orrick denied the defendants' motion for reconsideration and the motion to dismiss. Finally, he concluded that the plaintiff had adequately stated a claim for declaratory relief. 2017 WL 3086064.
On August 25, Judge Orrick found State of California v. Sessions to be a related case and reassigned it to himself. That case also challenged DOJ's immigration-related conditions on law enforcement funding.
On August 30, Santa Clara and San Francisco moved for summary judgment. Santa Clara argued that EO Section 9(a) was unconstitutional because it violated the separation of powers, the Tenth Amendment, and the Fifth Amendment's Due Process Clause. Consequently, Santa Clara argued, the court should permanently enjoin Section 9(a)'s implementation. The defendants, in their September 27 response, argued that the Constitution authorized their broad immigration enforcement powers as implemented in the EO and §1373. The plaintiffs replied on October 4.
On September 18, the defendants appealed, to the Ninth Circuit, Judge Orrick's April 25 preliminary injunction and July 20 order denying defendants' motions to dismiss and motion for reconsideration.
In the district court, Judge Orrick granted summary judgment for the plaintiffs on November 20, permanently enjoining defendants from enforcing Section 9(a) of the EO against all jurisdictions deemed as "sanctuary jurisdictions." On December 14, the defendants appealed this permanent injunction, asking the Ninth Circuit to consolidate this appeal with the other two appeals in process. The plaintiffs, for their part, asked the Ninth Circuit to dismiss the consolidated appeals as moot because they challenged a preliminary injunction that the permanent injunction had superseded. Eleven states filed amicus briefs supporting the defendants. However, the Ninth Circuit granted the plaintiffs' request on January 4, 2018, denying all pending motions as moot.
On August 1, 2018, the Ninth Circuit affirmed the summary judgment, but vacated and remanded for reconsideration the nationwide injunction. The panel held that the executive branch could not refuse to disperse the federal grants without congressional authorization under the Separation of Powers principle and the Spending Clause. The panel found that Congress had not so authorized, and so summary judgment was proper, but that there were no findings to support an injunction with nationwide reach. 897 F.3d 1225.
On August 23, 2019, Judge Orrick issued a Stipulation and Final Judgment and Order, entering Final Judgment in favor of the plaintiffs, enjoining the defendants from enforcing Section 9(a) in California, and prohibiting defendants from seeking further review of any final decision from this litigation. The plaintiffs withdrew their request for an injunction that would enjoin defendants from enforcing Section 9(a) outside the State of California.
The case is closed.
Summary Authors
Virginia Weeks (2/4/2017)
Julie Aust (2/24/2017)
Ava Morgenstern (4/14/2018)
Virginia Weeks (8/21/2018)
Sichun Liu (2/17/2019)
Aaron Gurley (2/15/2020)
City and County of San Francisco v. Trump, Northern District of California (2017)
City of Richmond v. Trump, Northern District of California (2017)
State of California v. Sessions, Northern District of California (2017)
For PACER's information on parties and their attorneys, see: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/4580584/parties/county-of-santa-clara-v-donald-j-trump/
Cousins, Nathanael M. (California)
Orrick, William Horsley III (California)
Bayley, Edward Andrew (California)
Benedict, Adriana Lee (California)
Goldberg, Nicholas Samuel (California)
Goldstein, Dax Luce (California)
Hansen, Greta Suzanne (California)
Harris, Cody Shawn (California)
Herrera, Dennis J. (California)
Keker, John Watkins (California)
Cousins, Nathanael M. (California)
Orrick, William Horsley III (California)
Bayley, Edward Andrew (California)
Benedict, Adriana Lee (California)
Goldberg, Nicholas Samuel (California)
Goldstein, Dax Luce (California)
Hansen, Greta Suzanne (California)
Harris, Cody Shawn (California)
Herrera, Dennis J. (California)
Keker, John Watkins (California)
Miller, Ava R. (California)
Morrisey, Patrick (West Virginia)
Narayan, Kavita Kandala (California)
Purcell, Daniel Edward (California)
Serrano, Lawrence Javier (California)
Spiegel, Julia Blau (California)
Stretch, Brian (District of Columbia)
Taylor, Jennifer Lee (California)
Tyler, John Russell (District of Columbia)
Van Aken, Christine (California)
Van Nest, Robert A. (California)
Wilensky, Julie H. (California)
Williams, James Robyzad (California)
Brasher, Andrew Lynn (Alabama)
Hinshelwood, Brad (District of Columbia)
Keller, Scott A. (Texas)
Landry, Jeff (Louisiana)
Lindstrom, Aaron D. (Michigan)
Mansinghani, Mithun (Oklahoma)
Murphy, Eric Earl (Ohio)
Readler, Chad Andrew (District of Columbia)
Rudofsky, Lee Philip (Arkansas)
Simpson, W. Scott (District of Columbia)
Tenny, Daniel (District of Columbia)
VanDyke, Lawrence James Christopher (Nevada)
Aguilar, Edmundo (California)
Alger, Maureen P. (California)
Amdur, Spencer (New York)
Artiga-Purcell, Jose Camilo (California)
Berner, Nicole (District of Columbia)
Burrichter, Christopher S. (California)
Cotchett, Joseph W. (California)
Danitz, Brian (California)
Dermody, Kelly M. (California)
Dineva, Ralitza (California)
Ehrlich, Lisa Catherine (California)
Eliasberg, Peter J. (California)
Fineman, Nancy L. (California)
Freeman, William S. (California)
Fritz, Kathryn J. (California)
Gertner, Leo (District of Columbia)
Gewertz, Nevin M (Illinois)
Ghassemi-Vanni, Sheeva June (California)
Goodmiller, Bruce Reed (California)
Gorelick, Jamie S. (District of Columbia)
Holloway, Amy Bisson (California)
Jadwat, Omar C. (New York)
Johansen, Robin B. (California)
Loy, John David (California)
Magaziner, Fred T. (California)
Mass, Julia Harumi (California)
McClellan, Nathan M. (California)
Moreno, Catherine Eugenia (California)
O'Leary, Ann Margaret (California)
Ou-Young, Kuang-Bao P. (California)
Pasquarella, Jennifer (California)
Perrin, Robert Ward (California)
Petrocelli, Michael Roland (California)
Piers, Matthew J. (Illinois)
Premo, Patrick E. (California)
Prestel, Claire (District of Columbia)
Prouty, Thomas Howard (California)
Rhea, Meghan (California)
Ross, Linda Margaret (California)
Salceda, Angelica H. (California)
Segura, Andre Ivan (New York)
Shih, Daniel Jeffrey (Washington)
Smith, Deborah L. (District of Columbia)
Sommovilla, Rachel Hanna (California)
Srikantiah, Jayashri (California)
Stark, Jennifer Lori (California)
Summer, Alexandra P. (California)
Teshima, Darren S. (California)
Whelan, Amy E. (California)
White, Lauren Gallo (California)
Winner, Sonya (California)
Wofsy, Cody H. (California)
Zimmerman, Mitchell (California)
Buckingham, Stephen J. (District of Columbia)
Johnson, Veronica (Missouri)
See docket on RECAP: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/4580584/county-of-santa-clara-v-donald-j-trump/
Last updated May 12, 2022
State / Territory: California
Case Type(s):
Special Collection(s):
Trump Immigration Enforcement Order Challenges
Key Dates
Filing Date: Feb. 3, 2017
Closing Date: Aug. 23, 2019
Case Ongoing: No
Plaintiffs
Plaintiff Description:
County of Santa Clara
Plaintiff Type(s):
Attorney Organizations:
Public Interest Lawyer: No
Filed Pro Se: No
Class Action Sought: No
Class Action Outcome: Not sought
Defendants
U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Federal
U.S. Department of Justice, Federal
U.S. Office of Management and Budget, Federal
Defendant Type(s):
Case Details
Causes of Action:
Declaratory Judgment Act, 28 U.S.C. § 2201
Constitutional Clause(s):
Federalism (including 10th Amendment)
Availably Documents:
Injunctive (or Injunctive-like) Relief
Outcome
Prevailing Party: Plaintiff
Nature of Relief:
Injunction / Injunctive-like Settlement
Preliminary injunction / Temp. restraining order
Source of Relief:
Content of Injunction:
Issues
General:
Immigration/Border: