SAN FRANCISCO (AP) – For the third time in two months, a federal judge has knocked down an immigration order by President Donald Trump and used Trump’s own language against him.
In a ruling on Tuesday, U.S. District Judge William Orrick quoted Trump to support his decision to block the president’s order to withhold funding from “sanctuary cities” that do not cooperate with U.S. immigration officials.
Trump called the sanctuary cities order a “weapon” against communities that disagree with his preferred immigration policy, Orrick said. The judge also cited a February interview in which he said the president threatened to cut off funding to California, saying the state “in many ways is out of control.”
The first comment was evidence that the administration intended the executive order to apply broadly to all sorts of federal funding, and not a relatively small pot of grant money as the Department of Justice had argued, the judge said.
The second statement showed the two California governments that sued to block the order – San Francisco and Santa Clara County – had good reason to believe they would be targeted, Orrick said.