By S.A. McCarthy
The Washington Stand
Over the course of June, Los Angeles erupted in riots in response to President Donald Trump’s deportation agenda. While much of the violence has subsided following Trump’s decision to federalize California’s National Guard and deploy U.S. Marines to the city, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) is now taking action. In a lawsuit filed Monday, the DOJ challenged L.A.’s “sanctuary” policies that have shielded illegal immigrants from law enforcement.
“In 2024, then candidate Donald J. Trump campaigned and won the presidential election on a platform of deporting the millions of illegal immigrants the previous administration permitted, through its open borders policy, to enter the country unlawfully,” the lawsuit states. It continues to cite “sanctuary” policies which L.A. Mayor Karen Bass (D) and the City Council subsequently codified into law. “The express purpose of Los Angeles’ Sanctuary City law is to thwart Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”) and Customs and Border Protection (“CBP”) from carrying out their statutory obligations as directed by Congress,” the lawsuit clarifies.
“The City of Los Angeles’ Sanctuary City laws are illegal. 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 lawsuit asserts. It continues to emphasize that L.A.’s “sanctuary” policies “obstruct the Federal Government’s enforcement of federal immigration law and impede consultation and communication between federal, state, and local law enforcement officials that is necessary for federal officials to carry out federal immigration law and keep Americans safe.”
“The practical upshot of Los Angeles’ refusal to cooperate with federal immigration authorities has, since June 6, 2025, been lawlessness, rioting, looting, and vandalism. The situation became so dire that the Federal Government deployed the California National Guard and United States Marines to quell the chaos,” the lawsuit says, referring to the L.A. riots which subsequently spread to other cities across the country. “A direct confrontation with federal immigration authorities was the inevitable outcome of the Sanctuary City law,” the lawsuit adds.
Bass is named as a defendant, along with City Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson and the entire City Council. The lawsuit asks that L.A.’s “sanctuary” policies be declared unconstitutional and “therefore unlawful, unenforceable, and void ab initio,” as well as requesting an injunction barring L.A. officials from enforcing the policies.
Lora Ries, director of the Heritage Foundation’s Border Security and Immigration Center, told The Washington Stand, “It is good to see this DOJ sue sanctuary jurisdictions to stand up for federal law. Sanctuary policies obstruct the federal government’s ability to enforce federal law. States and localities don’t get to pick and choose which federal laws they must comply with.” She added, “Also, it is good to see DOJ raise the equal protection argument as deportable aliens receive better treatment than U.S. citizens in multiple contexts.”
Center for Immigration Studies Policy Director Jessica Vaughan told TWS, “This lawsuit is a welcome development, and necessary to try to protect Californians from the sanctuary politicians who have politicized common sense immigration enforcement, and who have prevented law enforcement agencies in the state from cooperating with ICE on the removal of criminals.” She explained, “In the last 2 1/2 years, more than 13,000 criminal aliens that ICE was seeking to take into custody were instead released back to the streets because of sanctuary policies.”
Vaughan added, “Not only should the feds try to block the policy, they should also withhold federal law enforcement funding, and potentially look at federal charges against state and local leaders who try to interfere with immigration enforcement.” She observed, “The polls show that a strong majority of Californians oppose these policies, and there are way too many cases of people harmed because the politicians are protecting criminal aliens.”
U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California Bill Essayli said in a statement that the “lawsuit holds the City of Los Angeles accountable for deliberately obstructing the enforcement of federal immigration law. The United States Constitution’s Supremacy Clause prohibits the City from picking and choosing which federal laws will be enforced and which will not.” He added, “By assisting removable aliens in evading federal law enforcement, the City’s unlawful and discriminatory ordinance has contributed to a lawless and unsafe environment that this lawsuit will help end.” U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said, “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.”
L.A. has long been a hub for illegal immigration, due to longstanding “sanctuary” policies dating back to the 1970s. Following the economic hardships of the Great Depression, President Herbert Hoover initiated stringent measures to address illegal immigration, repatriating thousands of non-Americans, including many from Latin America. Subsequent deals between the U.S. and Mexican governments allowed Mexican laborers to legally work in California for short durations, often in low-skill industries with notable labor shortages. Although those programs were terminated in the 1960s as California’s native population grew, the travel networks Mexican workers used to reach L.A. and other south and central California cities were not dismantled.
Immigration enforcement efforts throughout the 1950s and 1960s were largely successful in deporting illegal immigrants but failed to identify and disassemble immigration routes and networks, which ultimately allowed deportees to return illegally. L.A. became a haven for illegal immigrants in 1979, when the L.A. Police Department (LAPD) implemented Special Order 40, an early “sanctuary” policy barring city police from investigating immigration status or making arrests based on immigration violations. As immigration enforcement continued throughout the rest of the country, L.A. became a destination for illegal immigrants. L.A.’s “sanctuary” efforts continued throughout the 1980s, with the City Council adopting a “City of Refuge” resolution in 1985.
Many of the measures enacted by city officials were symbolic and lacked enforcement mechanisms, including a 2017 “sanctuary” resolution passed by the City Council in response to the first Trump administration, signaling opposition to the president’s immigration agenda and reiterating L.A.’s longstanding non-compliance with federal law enforcement. This coincided with the signing of the California Values Act, explicitly prohibiting state and local law enforcement from cooperating with federal immigration authorities.
Two weeks after Trump’s 2024 electoral victory, however, the City Council unanimously voted to codify “sanctuary” policies into municipal law. Unlike previous symbolic measures, the new ordinance — the one the Trump administration is now challenging in federal court — blocked the use of city resources in immigration law enforcement, barred both direct and indirect sharing of data with federal immigration authorities like ICE, and enshrined the policies in municipal code, ensuring that they would be more difficult to reverse than mayoral orders or LAPD directives.
Under Trump, the DOJ has also sued Chicago and Illinois officials as well as New York authorities, citing “sanctuary” policies in those cities and states. Both the president and his administration officials have repeatedly identified “sanctuary” cities as illegal immigration hotbeds and threats to national security.
Originally published at The Washington Stand!
