The Justice Department has asked the Supreme Court to lift most of a nationwide order that prevents it from denying grants to jurisdictions that don’t cooperate with the federal government on immigration.
On Monday, Solicitor General Noel Francisco asked Justice Elena Kagan to issue a stay of the injunction that was issued by a federal judge in Chicago and upheld by a three-judge panel on the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. That decision is pending a review by the full appeals court.
The Justice Department asked the Supreme Court to limit the injunction by having it apply only to Chicago.
“Even if the lower courts’ statutory interpretation were correct, that sweeping remedy is unjustifiable and threatens irreparable harm to the government and the public,” Francisco wrote in the filing.
Francisco said the injunction “reflects the increasingly prevalent trend of entering categorical, absent-party injunctions that bar any enforcement” of federal law.
Under the injunction, the Justice Department was blocked from conditioning law enforcement grants on how cities, counties, and states deal with immigration. The three-judge panel from the 7th Circuit said in its ruling in April that Attorney General Jeff Sessions lacked the authority to impose the two criteria on grant recipients.
The two conditions blocked by the injunction required state and local law enforcement to notify federal authorities 48 hours before a particular illegal immigrant is released from custody and to give federal immigration authorities access to illegal immigrants in detention facilities. Those conditions were part of the Trump administration’s effort to crack down on sanctuary cities.
Judges in Philadelphia and San Francisco have also issued nationwide injunctions in similar cases challenging the new policy from the Justice Department.
