This case is another response to efforts by the Trump Administration to strip law enforcement funding from states and certain local jurisdictions unless their governments agree to participate in federal immigration enforcement.

On August 23, 2018, the State of California filed this lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. The plaintiff, represented by its attorney general, sued the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Attorney General under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), the Declaratory Judgment Act, and the Mandamus Statute. The plaintiff claimed that by unlawfully imposing immigration-related conditions on federal funding to the State, the government violated the spending clause and the APA.

California has been receiving federal funding through the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant (JAG) program, a criminal justice grant administered by the DOJ and the Office of Justice Programs (OJP). The plaintiff alleged that in 2017 the DOJ imposed unprecedented immigration enforcement conditions on recipients of JAG funding and that courts across the country have since struck those conditions as unconstitutional. The plaintiff also alleged that rather than change these conditions, the DOJ has maintained a requirement for FY2018 grants that the chief law officer of the jurisdiction applying for the grant certify compliance with 8 U.S.C. § 1373, which prohibits local government entities from imposing restrictions on the exchange of information regarding an individual’s immigration or citizenship status, among other statutes.

The case was assigned to Magistrate Judge Kandis A. Westmore, but was later reassigned to Judge William Orrick after it was related to another case challenging the FY2018 funding conditions; that case can be found here.

On March 4, 2019, Judge Orrick granted summary judgment to the plaintiffs in both cases.

Judge Orrick found that the challenged conditions were ultra vires and violated the separation of powers; that 8 U.S.C. § 1373 was unconstitutional; that the Attorney General exceeded the Spending Clause by imposing ambiguous conditions on Byrne JAG grants in FY2018; that the conditions were arbitrary and capricious in violation of the APA; that California was entitled to mandamus relief; and that a nationwide injunction was warranted but stayed.

On March 26, Judge Orrick issued his permanent injunction, enjoining the defendants from using the FY2018 Byrne JAG funding conditions for any California state entity, San Francisco, any California political subdivision, or any jurisdiction in the United States. The judge then stayed the nationwide aspect of the permanent injunction until further rulings from the Ninth Circuit (which had expressed concerns over the nationwide nature of the relief during the 2017 litigation over Byrne JAG funding conditions).

As of April 8, 2019, the defendants have yet to appeal.

Sam Kulhanek - 04/08/2019


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