A lawsuit being led by San Francisco and Santa Clara counties sought an injunction against President Trump's executive order denying federal funds to all cities and counties that decline to cooperate with ICE, and on Thursday, a federal judge granted it.

There was a 40-minute hearing Wednesday in US District Court in San Francisco in which over a dozen cities and counties around the country, led by San Francisco and Santa Clara counties, asked a judge for an injunction to stop Trump's order that is meant to punish jurisdictions that might push back on his mass-deportation efforts.

As KQED reports, on Thursday, Judge William H. Orrick issued that injunction, saying that Trump's order was unconstitutional, just as a similar order was that he issued in 2017. "The Cities and Counties have also demonstrated a likelihood of irreparable harm," Orrick writes in his ruling. "The threat to withhold funding causes them irreparable injury in the form of budgetary uncertainty, deprivation of constitutional rights and undermining trust between the Cities and Counties and the communities they serve."

Orrick further ordered that the Trump administration be restrained "from directly or indirectly taking any action to withhold, freeze, or condition federal funds." Also, he wrote that all federal departments must receive written notice of his order by Monday.

"Once again, the federal government is illegally asserting rights it does not have," said SF City Attorney David Chiu when the legal complaint was first filed in late February. And in a statement this week, Chiu added, of the Trump administration, "They want to commandeer local police officers as federal ICE agents, while strong-arming local officials with threats of withholding federal funds that support our police department, our efforts to address homelessness, and our public health system. As we have seen, the Trump Administration has now deported someone by error, and ICE agents have unlawfully arrested United States citizens."

Trump issued the order as his second term in office began, and followed it up with a second order in February titled "Ending Taxpayer Subsidization of Open Borders." The second order seeks, in part, to "ensure... that Federal payments to States and localities do not, by design or effect, facilitate the subsidization or promotion of illegal immigration, or abet so-called 'sanctuary' policies that seek to shield illegal aliens from deportation."

Joining SF and Santa Clara County in the lawsuit are the cities of Emeryville, Oakland, Sacramento, San Jose, San Diego and Santa Cruz, along with Monterey County. Also joining the complaint are New Haven, Connecticut; Portland, Oregon; and King County, Washington; Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota; and Santa Fe, New Mexico.

San Francisco's sanctuary policy dates back over 30 years, to 1989, with city leaders consistently citing studies that show such policies make cities safer — in part because they allow undocumented immigrants a sense of security about cooperating with police when a crime is committed, without fear of deportation.

During Wednesday's hearing, as NBC Bay Area reports, Judge Orrick had "sharp questions" for the attorneys representing the Trump administration, who were arguing that no protective order is necessary just yet because no specific rules pertaining to the order have been issued, and no grants or funds have been withheld yet.

Judge Orrick disagreed with that argument, per KQED, saying to the government's lawyers, "The distinction, though, that I think will be hard for you to get around is that the executive order speaks to all federal funds. It’s not speaking to a discrete grant. And so that becomes coercive, as the plaintiffs argue, to governments that rely on federal funding for health care and other things that are at risk."

This case joins the ongoing parade of federal cases that have stymied Trump's various and sundry executive orders, preventing him from ruling like a king by fiat, at least for now. His administration will no doubt now try to escalate this to the Supreme Court.

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