Lawyers representing the cities of Somerville and Chelsea appeared in federal court Thursday in Boston for a hearing on their motion seeking to stop the Trump administration from targeting immigrant sanctuary cities. U.S District Judge Nathaniel Gorton will issue a decision at a later date.
The motion is the latest step in a lawsuit filed in February that challenges executive orders and new federal policies that threaten funding to cities with sanctuary laws, which limit how local law enforcement can help federal immigration and deportation efforts.
The suit names president Donald Trump, the departments of Justice, Homeland Security and Transportation and leaders from each department as defendants.
Discussion in court centered around whether the orders represent an immediate threat to the cities’ ability to govern, as well as whether Trump’s administration has exceeded its power over state and local governance.
Gorton also asked that the lawyers address a June decision by a district judge in Rhode Island granting several states, including in Massachusetts, a preliminary injunction against the Department of Transportation after it added a condition to grants requiring recipients to help federal immigration law enforcement efforts. Somerville is the recipient of a $4 million grant from the department that was under threat before the injunction was issued.
Making the case
Oren Sellstrom, who represented Somerville and Chelsea in court as litigation director for the group Lawyers for Civil Rights, said the Rhode Island decision leaves the two cities in a “tenuous” position. The decision does not address sanctuary cities directly.
The sanctuary city executive orders, in concert with policy changes from federal agencies, are part of a “campaign of coercion” against cities that have a right to choose to limit cooperation, Sellstrom said. Uncertainty about the accessibility of federal funds interferes with city administrators’ ability to run their city and make budget decisions, he said.
“Harm is immediate, ongoing and escalating,” Sellstrom said in court. “This is threatening, this is intimidating … it becomes unsustainable for small jurisdictions.” He described the federal actions as a “sword of Damocles” hanging over city governments.
Federal response
Department of Justice trial attorney Elisabeth Neylan, who spoke on behalf of the federal government, said the cities failed to demonstrate “irreparable harm.”
“This is a programmatic challenge to the agencies’ policy announcements,” she said, noting that while these policies may apply to future grants, they don’t apply retroactively to funding that the cities have already received.
The economic uncertainty that Sellstrom described is simply a part of governing, not an example of harm, she countered.
“Not empty threats”
In questioning, Gorton indicated agreement with Neylan’s argument. “Speech is not the same as action, threats are not the same as withholding real dollars,” he said of the federal announcements.
Sellstrom responded that he believes the cities face imminent threats as the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown escalates. “These are not empty threats,” he said during the hearing.
After the hearing, Somerville mayor Katjana Ballantyne and Chelsea city manager Fidel Maltez spoke in support of the lawsuit.
“I am here today because our federal funding is being unlawfully threatened,” Ballantyne said. “Our constitutional rights are being stripped and compromised.”
“The federal administration wants to pressure us,” Maltez added. “They want to force us to make Chelsea and Somerville less safe by diverting our police from protecting our neighborhoods to becoming tools of mass deportation.”
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