Speaker 1: It's President Trump's second setback in court on major immigration
Speaker 1: policy initiatives. Yesterday, at federal court in San Francisco blocked
Speaker 1: a Trump order to withhold funding to sanctuary cities. Judge
Speaker 1: William Rick agreed with San Francisco and Santa Clara County
Speaker 1: that the president's January order violated the Constitution's fifth and
Speaker 1: tenth Amendments and that Trump was attempting to wield powers
Speaker 1: exclusive to Congress. San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera said
Speaker 1: Trump was selling fear. The President sought to bully local
Speaker 1: governments with an unconstitutional executive order threatening all of their funding.
Speaker 1: He sought to commerce local governments into holding people in
Speaker 1: jail beyond their released release date. Trump responded to the
Speaker 1: order as he has before, by criticizing the judge. This morning,
Speaker 1: he tweeted, first the Ninth Circuit rules against the ban,
Speaker 1: and now it hits again on sanctuary cities. Both ridiculous rulings.
Speaker 1: See you in the Supreme Court. Joining us are Dan's
Speaker 1: I'm President of the Federation for American Immigration Reform and
Speaker 1: Joseph Hollenstein of Council at Landau has Simon and Troy
Speaker 1: Joe explain the basis of judge or its ruling. Essentially,
Speaker 1: what the judge was doing with the order was to
Speaker 1: agree with the final position of the government that it
Speaker 1: only changed when it came to make an oral argument
Speaker 1: in his court, and that was that there is a
Speaker 1: very limited number of funds that are directly connected to
Speaker 1: federal immigration, um enforcement. And those are the funds that
Speaker 1: the federal government can tell states or municipalities, well, we're
Speaker 1: controlling these if you have particular immigration policies. All of
Speaker 1: the rest and the and the implication from the and
Speaker 1: the implication and plain language actually of the original executive
Speaker 1: order was so broad that it effectively threatened federal funding throughout, um,
Speaker 1: you know, a local government's budget. And um that's what
Speaker 1: the judge struck down. He said, you can't you can't
Speaker 1: connect an immigration policy to know how many police officers
Speaker 1: federal government is going to help to fund or law
Speaker 1: enforcement funding, or housing funding or education funding. And that's
Speaker 1: really what the executive order was designed to do, was
Speaker 1: to place all federal funding for local municipalities at risk.
Speaker 1: And the judge said, simply can't do that. Now. The
Speaker 1: federal government, the attorney at the oral argument with this
Speaker 1: essentially backed away from that very very broad reading, which
Speaker 1: was what was said throughout the entire um publication process
Speaker 1: around this. This executive order in the Federal attorney said directly, yes,
Speaker 1: this more limited version is is the is the version
Speaker 1: that we need to uphold, and in effect that the
Speaker 1: final ruling of the judge was to say, yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: the most you can do is this limited ruling. Dan.
Speaker 1: The you know, conservatives were very happy with the decision
Speaker 1: in one of the Obamacare cases about the Medicaid expansion
Speaker 1: that said that basically, the you know, the federal government
Speaker 1: can't put a gun to the head over funding you know,
Speaker 1: to the states and put limits on how coercive the
Speaker 1: federal government could be about um conditions on federal funding.
Speaker 1: And it feels a bit like the you know that
Speaker 1: argument has come back to haunt the Trump administration in
Speaker 1: this case. It's kind of ironic, isn't it the judges
Speaker 1: relying on that argument to uh to prevent the Trump
Speaker 1: administration from enforcing this order. Well, of course, it's very
Speaker 1: frustrating to see the quickness with which these judges are
Speaker 1: willing to issue these nationwide and junctions on the strength
Speaker 1: of rhetoric or broad based language which d o J
Speaker 1: attorneys a certain court is not the proper interpretation of
Speaker 1: the executive order. And in this case, of course, there
Speaker 1: really isn't even a case or controversy because d o
Speaker 1: J hasn't actually tried to specifically enforce certainly not the
Speaker 1: executive order in the way that the Santa Clara and
Speaker 1: the other counties were asserting it was going to be.
Speaker 1: But you know, remember Arizona wanted to try to assist
Speaker 1: the federal government in its own enforcement in enforcing immigration laws,
Speaker 1: and that was struck down by federal courts. And now
Speaker 1: you have the federal government exercising a pleanering power, not
Speaker 1: the commandeer state functions, you know, essential sovereign state functions,
Speaker 1: but simply to assist the federal government in accordance with
Speaker 1: federal law in turning over information about an aliens status
Speaker 1: and in certain cases detaining aliens, putting them on civil
Speaker 1: immigration holes until Immigration Customs enforcement can come and pick
Speaker 1: them up. And you know, none of the you know,
Speaker 1: to some extent, the judge just kind of got way
Speaker 1: ahead of himself by saying, Okay, I'm going to enjoy
Speaker 1: something that the Trump administration wasn't even planning to do,
Speaker 1: and and it has enormous political implications because of the
Speaker 1: way the media supported. The way that d o J
Speaker 1: was planning to interpret this was quite narrowly tailored to
Speaker 1: law enforcement related functions that are directly related to the
Speaker 1: process of of holding aliens or verifying status. So you
Speaker 1: can argue it's a draconian, drastically overbroad injunction, completely unsupported
Speaker 1: by the record, and once once again an example of
Speaker 1: political judicial legislating from the bench. We're talking about a
Speaker 1: federal judge in San Francisco blocking a Trump order to
Speaker 1: withhold funding to sanctuary cities yesterday. Also yesterday, a group
Speaker 1: of mayors and major police officers met with A. G.
Speaker 1: Jeff Sessions to talk about the very issue of what
Speaker 1: is a sanctuary city, and they came out with different impressions,
Speaker 1: although many said order would be limited to the law
Speaker 1: on transmitting citizenship information, and that law is one which
Speaker 1: the Obama administration said last July it would require compliance
Speaker 1: with We've been speaking with Dan Stein, president of the
Speaker 1: Federation for American Immigration Reform, and Joseph Hohenstein, a council
Speaker 1: at Landau, Hess Simon and choi Dan. If this order
Speaker 1: is just limited to the order that these cities have
Speaker 1: already been under obligation to follow under the Obama administration,
Speaker 1: what was the point of making the order in the
Speaker 1: first place. That's a really good question because of d
Speaker 1: o J asserts Council asserts in court that this is
Speaker 1: how they're going to enforce it, quite narrowly and consistent
Speaker 1: with jurisdictions that the Obama administration said, we're not providing
Speaker 1: information pursuing to federal law. That's a usc three. Then
Speaker 1: what's the big noise? I mean, what's the big deal?
Speaker 1: Why issue a nationwide injunction to stop the Trump administration
Speaker 1: from doing what it wasn't going to do in the
Speaker 1: first place. And you can't help but believe that there
Speaker 1: was a political element where the judge judge or felt
Speaker 1: that he could invoke a teentiment and constitutional claim, which
Speaker 1: is really quite ridiculous when you think about it, involving
Speaker 1: the provision of federal grants. When you have defendants who
Speaker 1: are asserting, look, we're not trying to interfere with essential
Speaker 1: state functions. We simply want states to assist the federal
Speaker 1: government in verifying an alien status consistent with federal law,
Speaker 1: which has always been something that the supremacy clause under
Speaker 1: federal law has entitled the federal government to do. Now
Speaker 1: that could the judge did say, Congress could go in
Speaker 1: and change the law. The Congress can certainly condition broader
Speaker 1: grants and these narrow grants to a state's willingness to
Speaker 1: assist in enforcing federal law. But the line on what
Speaker 1: becomes commandeering and when you're coercing a state to say
Speaker 1: detained aliens or actually go out and find them, you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's a pretty bright one. But this case really
Speaker 1: didn't address that. Joe, you know, would disagree on that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so that this department did say that there was you know,
Speaker 1: this was a very narrow thing to really change the law.
Speaker 1: It was really more of a bully pulpit kind of order.
Speaker 1: And the judge found that that that's not the way
Speaker 1: he read the order. Can you explain why did the
Speaker 1: judge read the order more broadly than the Justice Department did? Well?
Speaker 1: For two reasons. One, the order itself is written that broadly,
Speaker 1: and there are specific sections of the order that place
Speaker 1: any federal funds at risk. And second, contrary to the
Speaker 1: position that was taken after the government was sued and
Speaker 1: taken into court. Before they were taken into court, the
Speaker 1: Attorney General and the president and the president's press secretary,
Speaker 1: we're all talking about this is going to make sure
Speaker 1: that we turned the financial screws, which is effectively commandeering
Speaker 1: on the local um the local municipalities, and in in
Speaker 1: this situation, that concept of the bully pulpit. To think
Speaker 1: about the last president who really used the concept of
Speaker 1: bully pulpit, you know, Teddy Roosevelt. Teddy Roosevelt's philosophy was
Speaker 1: speak softly and carry a big stick. What this is
Speaker 1: is speaking loudly but carrying a toothpick. Because what they
Speaker 1: wanted to do when it was finally challenged, when the
Speaker 1: bullies were finally challenged in court, what happened was they
Speaker 1: backed off and is it all We didn't really mean it.
Speaker 1: But that's not what that either the order says, and
Speaker 1: it's not what they were saying before they were challenged.
Speaker 1: And um, the politicization is not coming from the judge here,
Speaker 1: it's coming from the administration itself that issues and sends
Speaker 1: out orders like this that are written extremely poorly, very overbroadly,
Speaker 1: and in ways that are designed to stoke concern and
Speaker 1: worry and fear. It interrupts the planning process. For a
Speaker 1: city like San Francisco that gets of its budget overall
Speaker 1: for things like housing, things like police, and things like
Speaker 1: its schools, all of that funding was at risk with
Speaker 1: the way that the order is written and the way
Speaker 1: that both the president and the president, his Attorney general
Speaker 1: and his Press secretary, we're all saying they were going
Speaker 1: to enforce this. Dan, do you Dan, do you agree
Speaker 1: that President Trump made a great deal of the signing
Speaker 1: of this order and it was televised and he said
Speaker 1: this is going to help with immigration reform, And if
Speaker 1: it's the same as what Obama was doing, why make
Speaker 1: a big deal about it on his part? Well, again,
Speaker 1: that they're you know, there are traditionally rules of construction
Speaker 1: as well as rules regarding standing and rightness for when
Speaker 1: a judge is actually supposed to decide whether the plaintiff
Speaker 1: has injury in fact. And at this point, until you
Speaker 1: actually see how the executive order is going to be enforced,
Speaker 1: until General Sessions actually seeks to withdraw grant money or
Speaker 1: condition spending and specifically seeks to enforce it, it's hard
Speaker 1: to understand why the judge would have even proceeded to
Speaker 1: try to interpret the executive order. And if you allow
Speaker 1: the judge to start taking in to account again, we
Speaker 1: see campaign statements and campaign rhetoric being used by judges
Speaker 1: to go ahead and try to interpret executive orders. However
Speaker 1: you know, imprecisely they may have been drafted. Well, there's
Speaker 1: no end to the kind of pernicious political nature of
Speaker 1: that kind of legal interpretation. Political campaigns are by definition
Speaker 1: raucous uh, you know, loud, imprecise uh debates, and they're not.
Speaker 1: They shouldn't take the place in a courtroom for precise
Speaker 1: statutory construction. The rules of statutory construction as well as
Speaker 1: article free standing. In this case, nobody had tried to
Speaker 1: take any money specifically away from these jurisdictions yet, and
Speaker 1: so even you know, these are preliminary junctions being issued
Speaker 1: even before there's been a full briefing on the marriage.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna have to stop you there, Dan, We're going
Speaker 1: to continue with this conversation at some point. Again, I'm
Speaker 1: sure that's Dan Stein, president of the Federation for American
Speaker 1: Immigration Reform, and Joseph Hohenstein of Council at LANDAU has
Speaker 1: Simon and Choi coming up. We are going to be
Speaker 1: going live to the White House briefing on the tax plan,
Speaker 1: and we're also going to be talking about the oversight
Speaker 1: panel saying that President Donald Trump's former national security advisor,
Speaker 1: Michael Flynn appeared to violate federal law. I'm June Grasso
Speaker 1: with Michael Beast. This is Bloomberg