No, Jeff Sessions, you cant just strip funding from sanctuary cities to hurt immigrants
The Justice Department threatened to cut off grant funding to eight cities on Friday — unless those cities provide more support to federal officials trying to crack down on undocumented immigrants. But DOJ’s threat is unconstitutional and is highly unlikely to survive a lawsuit.
In fact, the Justice Department’s threat against these eight cities appears to be so amateurish and so poorly aligned with longstanding Supreme Court precedent that it raises serious questions about whether the threat was properly vetted.
At issue is funding for so-called “sanctuary cities,” a term that’s often used for cities that choose not to cooperate with federal efforts to arrest immigrants.
Under the Supreme Court’s “anti-commandeering doctrine,” the feds cannot order a state or local government to participate in a federal program. Thus, while a state or municipality may voluntarily agree to have its police force participate in federal immigration enforcement, state and local governments also have an absolute right to refuse to do so.
However, the federal government is permitted to offer states or localities a financial incentive to participate in a federal program. So the feds can create a grant program, but only make the grant money available to states or cities that comply with certain conditions — which means Congress could hypothetically pass a law stating a city may only receive certain federal funds if it agrees to make its police force available for immigration enforcement.
But there are constitutional limits on the federal government’s ability to impose such conditions upon a federal grant program. Among other things, the Supreme Court explained in South Dakota v. Dole, “if Congress desires to condition the States’ receipt of federal funds, it ‘must do so unambiguously” in a way that enables “the States to exercise their choice knowingly, cognizant of the consequences of their participation.’”
https://thinkprogress.org/jeff-sessions-amateurish-unconstitutional-assault-on-immigrants-dd6ab8a1671e
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