The Justice Department is suing the city of Los Angeles over its so-called “sanctuary city” policy passed in the weeks following Donald Trump’s 2024 presidential election victory that prevents city resources from going toward immigration enforcement.
The city’s laws, DOJ says, “interfere with and discriminate against the Federal Government’s enforcement of federal immigration law,” according to the lawsuit filed Monday.
“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 complaint states.
In announcing the law’s passage in November, LA’s City Council said the “newly adopted ordinance permanently enshrines sanctuary policies into municipal law and prohibits the use of City resources, including property and personnel, from being utilized for immigration enforcement or to cooperate with federal immigration agents engaged in immigration enforcement.”
“Critically,” the Los Angeles release stated, “the Ordinance also prohibits the direct and indirect sharing of data with federal immigration authorities – an important gap to close in our city’s protections for immigrants.”
The Justice Department says that the law prevents LA officials from assisting federal agents, sharing information and otherwise obstructing their efforts, all of which, they say, runs counter to the Constitution.
“Sanctuary policies were the driving cause of the violence, chaos, and attacks on law enforcement that Americans recently witnessed in Los Angeles,” Attorney General Pamela Bondi said in a press release announcing the lawsuit Monday. “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.”
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