By Jack Phillips
Contributing Writer
The Department of Justice on Monday filed a lawsuit against the city of Los Angeles over what it said are “sanctuary city” policies that shield illegal immigrants from deportation efforts, escalating a legal battle between the White House and Democrats in the state.
In a lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, lawyers for the DOJ argued that such policies block federal immigration enforcement and are illegal because only the federal government has the authority to enforce immigration law. The suit names the city, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, and the City Council as defendants.
What the Lawsuit Says
“The city of Los Angeles’ Sanctuary City laws are illegal,” the DOJ’s lawsuit states. “Those laws and policies are designed to and in fact do interfere with and discriminate against the federal government’s enforcement of federal immigration law in violation of the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution.
“The challenged law and policies of the city of Los Angeles obstruct the federal government’s enforcement of federal immigration law and impede consultation and communication between federal, state and local law enforcement officials.”
Specifically, the DOJ lawsuit targets policies that were initiated after President Donald Trump took office in January. It argues that those policies contributed to protests, unrest and riots that occurred earlier in June over federal immigration efforts in Los Angeles.
Similar lawsuits have been filed by the DOJ in Chicago, Colorado and New Jersey, targeting those jurisdictions’ sanctuary policies.
After Trump’s election in November 2024, the Los Angeles City Council passed an ordinance that blocks city resources from being used for federal immigration measures.
One Los Angeles City Council member, Nithya Raman, described the measure as a “sanctuary city” ordinance. The ordinance codifies the protection of illegal immigrants in municipal law.
Council member Paul Krekorian said, “[The measure addresses] the need to ensure that our immigrant community here in Los Angeles understands that we understand their fear.”
Legal Battle Escalates
At one point, Trump signed an order to send in the National Guard and a battalion of Marines to respond to riots and unrest, saying the move was needed to protect federal officials and property.
In response, California Attorney General Rob Bonta, a Democrat, filed a lawsuit that sought to block Trump’s order to send in the troops, although an appeals court on June 19 allowed the president to retain control of California’s National Guard.
“Sanctuary policies were the driving cause of the violence, chaos and attacks on law enforcement that Americans recently witnessed in Los Angeles,” Attorney General Pamela Bondi said in a statement on Monday about the lawsuit. “Jurisdictions like Los Angeles that flout federal law by prioritizing illegal aliens over American citizens are undermining law enforcement at every level — it ends under President Trump.”
Earlier in June, Bass released a statement chiding the Trump administration’s decision to deploy the National Guard, saying the move would escalate unrest in Los Angeles.
“This is the last thing that our city needs, and I urge protestors to remain peaceful,” the mayor, a Democrat, said at the time.
Court Rules for Trump
Trump most likely acted within his authority, a three-judge panel of the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said at the time. The panel also said that his administration probably complied with the requirement to coordinate with California Gov. Gavin Newsom and that even if it did not, Newsom had no authority to veto Trump’s directive.
“And although we hold that the president likely has authority to federalize the National Guard, nothing in our decision addresses the nature of the activities in which the federalized National Guard may engage,” it wrote in its opinion.
In a post on social media platform X after the decision, Newsom vowed to pursue his challenge and was again critical of the Trump administration’s policies.
“The president is not a king and is not above the law,” he said on social media. “We will press forward with our challenge to President Trump’s authoritarian use of U.S. military soldiers against our citizens.”
As Monday afternoon, Bass had not issued a statement on the DOJ’s lawsuit.
Deportation Effort Expanding
Earlier in June, Trump said he was directing Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers to expand efforts to detain and deport illegal immigrants across the United States.
In a Truth Social post, Trump said ICE officers would do everything they could to carry out what he described as the “largest mass deportation operation of illegal aliens in history,” in cities such as Los Angeles, Chicago and New York City, where many illegal immigrants are concentrated.
The June 15 post followed a statement on May 28 from White House adviser Stephen Miller to Fox News, confirming that the Trump administration is aiming to significantly increase the number of daily arrests of illegal immigrants to 3,000.
“We are looking to set a goal of a minimum of 3,000 arrests for ICE every day, and President Trump is going to keep pushing to get that number up higher each and every single day,” Miller told Fox News’s Sean Hannity.
Reuters contributed to this report.
