President Donald Trump has once again faced a massive loss in the courts.
Trump's plan to hold sanctuary cities accountable by freezing funding has been blocked by a judge.
We have to go all the way back to April to when Trump revealed his intent to drop the hammer on sanctuary cities.
Trump posted to Truth Social, “No more Sanctuary Cities! They protect the Criminals, not the Victims. They are disgracing our Country, and are being mocked all over the World."
He continued, “Working on papers to withhold all Federal Funding for any City or State that allows these Death Traps to exist!!!”
Democrats predictably said they would fight this, and as I stated at the time, this was, more or less, an empty threat from Trump, and Democrats knew it.
I have long stated that the Supreme Court needs to address sanctuary cities, an issue it has managed to kick down the road for quite some time.
Until the Court does address it, the Impoundment Control Act stands in Trump’s way.
The law allows for a temporary suspension of funds not to exceed 45 days, but spending cuts cannot be made unless approved by Congress. That bill was signed into law in 1974 by Richard Nixon.
There is no way around this. So, we have two possible situations. Either Trump is ignorant of the law, or he doesn’t care and continues to make these threats that are costing taxpayers millions of dollars in legal fees in cases he cannot win.
This leads us to the recent ruling by U.S. District Court Judge John J. McConnell Jr, a Barack Obama appointee, who will likely be called an activist judge by the Trump administration, but that is not the case.
McConnell ruled, "Defendants are prohibited from taking adverse action against any state entity or local jurisdiction, including barring it from receiving or making it ineligible for federal funding, based on the Immigration Enforcement Condition, absent specific statutory authorization."
The decision continued, "The Court forbids and enjoins any attempt to implement the Immigration Enforcement Condition, and any actions by the Defendants to implement or enforce the Immigration Enforcement Condition."
Regardless of the objections by the Trump administration, McConnell’s ruling is supported by the current laws on the books, but Trump keeps walking into this fire. I have to tell you, it is quite annoying from my perspective, because the laws are so clear, yet the administration is painting this in a different light. The White House counsel team should be fired, in my opinion, because they are costing us millions if they are advising Trump that he has the right to cut this spending.
