What legal challenges have been brought against sanctuary city lists and federal funding conditions?
Executive summary
Federal efforts to label jurisdictions as “sanctuary” and strip them of federal funds have prompted immediate legal pushback: courts have twice blocked prior attempts to withhold broad swaths of federal money, and new challenges are already filed against recent executive orders and agency guidance that create a DOJ “sanctuary” list and condition grants on cooperation with federal immigration authorities [1] [2] [3]. Plaintiffs range from states and cities to advocacy groups; their lawsuits generally rely on limits in the Constitution and statutory spending rules, while the administration invokes public-safety and immigration-enforcement prerogatives [4] [5].
1. Recent lawsuits and where they were filed
Multiple legal actions have been brought contesting the administration’s post-2024 policies: litigation filed in California and Illinois challenges an executive order and related DOJ/agency guidance that would deny DOJ grants and other federal assistance to jurisdictions designated as “sanctuary” [3] [6]. Local leaders in identified jurisdictions—including large cities and states named on the Justice Department’s published “sanctuary jurisdiction” list—have signaled intent to sue if funds are cut, and some municipal coalitions and advocacy groups have already denounced the move and pledged litigation [5] [7].
2. What courts have already done — precedents that matter
Courts have a track record of blocking comparable efforts: judges struck down or enjoined Trump-era attempts in 2017 and more recently struck down a similar 2025 executive withholding plan, finding the government’s approach legally infirm when it sought to condition broad federal payments on local cooperation with federal immigration enforcement [1] [2] [8]. Legal commentators and state officials note that those rulings emphasize limits on the federal government’s power to coerce states and localities via funding cuts [4].
3. The administration’s tools: executive orders, DOJ list, and guidance
The administration has used an executive order labeled to “protect American communities from criminal aliens,” agency guidance that says sanctuary jurisdictions “will not receive DOJ grants,” and an official DOJ “sanctuary jurisdiction” list that describes criteria such as restrictions on information sharing and use of local funds to support federal enforcement [5] [3]. The administration has publicly threatened to halt payments to states and cities it deems supportive of sanctuary policies and to enforce list-based funding restrictions beginning Feb. 1, 2026, escalating the stakes for named jurisdictions [8] [9] [10].
4. Core legal arguments plaintiffs are making
Challenges focus on several doctrines: the anti-coercion principle under the Tenth Amendment and Spending Clause jurisprudence (arguing the federal government cannot condition “all” federal funding on compliance), statutory limits on which programs may be conditioned, and procedural claims that the executive actions lacked required notice or meaningful standards [4] [3] [6]. Plaintiffs also point to prior rulings that invalidated earlier funding-withholding attempts as evidence the current measures repeat the same constitutional defects [1] [2].
5. The government’s legal posture and political signaling
The administration defends its actions as necessary to prevent local policies from impeding federal immigration enforcement and to protect public safety, and it has argued agencies have discretionary authority to set grant conditions and to refuse funds to jurisdictions that “materially impede” enforcement [5] [10]. Political messaging—threats to cut payments to entire states that host sanctuary cities—complicates the legal calculus because Congress controls appropriations and courts have been skeptical of blanket, coercive conditions on federal funds [11] [12].
6. What to expect next and why it matters
Given recent precedent, more injunctions and fast-moving appeals are likely if cuts are attempted, and the fate of the DOJ list will turn on whether courts view it as a lawful, narrowly tailored condition or an unconstitutional attempt to commandeer state and local policy; scholars and state officials warn that the final answers will be case-specific and depend on how the administration implements and ties conditions to particular statutory grant programs [3] [6]. Reporting to date documents the filings and prior rulings but cannot predict judicial outcomes; courts remain the arbiter of whether these sanctuary lists and funding conditions survive constitutional scrutiny [1] [2].