California Braces For Legal Battle Over Trump's Immigration Orders

In the time since Donald Trump won the presidential election, there has been an increasing amount of tension between lawmakers in Washington DC and lawmakers in California. But the West Coast state has quickly developed a knack for resisting, mobilizing to fight against multiple Trump White House decisions including climate change denial, attempts to end legal marijuana, and various measures to deport immigrants.

The latest development in this saga, however, greatly ups the ante with regards to the state's sanctuary laws and sanctuary cities, the protections which are in place to shield undocumented immigrants from the deportation demands of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (otherwise known as "ICE"). The Justice Department, under the leadership of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, is suing the state and officials like Governor Jerry Brown for blocking federal immigration enforcement. The suit seeks to dissolve the state's structures and laws that enable it to ignore immigration orders to effectively show other cities and states resisting Trump's rules that they will eventually have to acquiesce.

Sessions is set to speak on the matter and noted that they plan to win their case against "these unjust, unfair and unconstitutional policies that have been imposed." The suit is specifically taking aim at California's SB54 law, a mandate that prohibits local police from reporting illegal immigrants to immigration officials for minor offenses, the Immigrant Worker Protection Act, and a law regarding the inspection of immigrant detention centers.

Meanwhile, California officials are prepared to fight back and hold their stance against Trump's decidedly anti-immigrant policies. Governor Jerry Brown has called Sessions's move an effort to "further divide and polarize America" at a time of great political stress. Brown's thoughts, which he tweeted out, also included one clear jab at the president: he called the effort "SAD!!!"

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra also had strong words to say on the matter and vowed that the state will stay the course in order to protect all the state's citizens by upholding the law. "We're in the business of public safety," Becerra tweeted, "not deportation."

The lawsuit is also of note because it is the first to place a state against the Justice Department and the DOJ's ongoing behavior in regards to immigration. States like Colorado, New Mexico, and Oregon, in addition to various cities and counties with sanctuary laws, could face similar suits from Sessions. This saga of state vs. country has been ongoing, of course, but this legal move — whether a distracting stunt or legitimate case — takes that battle to the next level.