The Claim

Targeted so-called “sanctuary” jurisdictions giving safe harbor to criminal illegal aliens by cutting grant funding and other discretionary programming.

The Claim, Unpacked

What is literally being asserted?

Two components: (1) the administration targeted sanctuary jurisdictions by cutting federal grant funding and discretionary programs; (2) those jurisdictions were “giving safe harbor to criminal illegal aliens.”

What is being implied but not asserted?

That sanctuary jurisdictions actively protect criminals from law enforcement. That cutting their funding is both legally permissible and effective policy. That the funding cuts were successfully implemented. That the funding cuts made communities safer. That there is a causal relationship between sanctuary policies and criminal activity by undocumented immigrants.

What is conspicuously absent?

Any mention that federal courts blocked the funding cuts as unconstitutional — repeatedly, across multiple judges and multiple legal challenges, just as they did during Trump’s first term. Any acknowledgment that the identical strategy was tried in 2017 and ruled unconstitutional by the Ninth Circuit. Any disclosure that “sanctuary” policies do not protect people convicted of violent crimes — peer-reviewed research shows sanctuary policies reduce deportations of people without criminal records by half while having no effect on deportations of people with violent convictions. Any mention that sanctuary jurisdictions have lower crime rates than comparable non-sanctuary jurisdictions. Any acknowledgment that the services threatened by funding cuts include domestic violence shelters, disaster relief, community policing, opioid treatment, and victim services — the very programs that protect communities from crime. Any mention of the anti-commandeering doctrine, the Spending Clause, or the Tenth Amendment. Any disclosure that the DHS’s own initial list of 500+ “sanctuary jurisdictions” was so inaccurate it had to be taken down within days, and included jurisdictions in solid red states.

Evidence Assessment

Established Facts

The administration did attempt to cut funding to sanctuary jurisdictions through multiple executive actions. On January 20, 2025, President Trump signed EO 14,159 (“Protecting the American People Against Invasion”). On February 5, 2025, Attorney General Pam Bondi issued the “Sanctuary Jurisdiction Directives” memorandum, directing DOJ to halt federal grants to jurisdictions noncompliant with 8 U.S.C. Section 1373(a). On April 28, 2025, Trump signed EO 14287 (“Protecting American Communities from Criminal Aliens”), directing the Attorney General and DHS Secretary to publish a list of sanctuary jurisdictions within 30 days and directing agency heads to identify federal funds for “suspension or termination.” [^042-a1]

The DOJ formally designated 32 sanctuary jurisdictions as of October 2025. The list includes 12 states (California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, D.C., Illinois, Minnesota, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington), 3 counties (Cook County IL, San Diego County CA, San Francisco County CA), and 18 cities (including New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston, Denver, Philadelphia, Portland, Seattle, San Francisco). [^042-a2]

DHS published a separate list of 500+ “sanctuary jurisdictions” in May 2025, then removed it within days. The list, published May 29, 2025, included nearly 400 counties across more than 30 states, including jurisdictions in red states like Tennessee and North Dakota. The National Sheriffs’ Association President called the list “arbitrary.” DHS removed some jurisdictions before taking the entire list offline on June 1-2, 2025. [^042-a3]

Federal courts blocked the funding cuts as unconstitutional — repeatedly. On April 24, 2025, U.S. District Judge William Orrick (N.D. Cal.) issued a preliminary injunction blocking enforcement of EO 14,159 and EO 14,218, finding violations of the Spending Clause, the Tenth Amendment anti-commandeering doctrine, and the Fifth Amendment. On August 22, 2025, Orrick extended the injunction to protect Boston, Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles, and 30 additional cities and counties. In September 2025, U.S. District Judge William Smith (D.R.I.) ruled it unconstitutional to require states to cooperate with immigration enforcement to receive FEMA grants. In December 2025, U.S. District Judge Mary McElroy ordered DHS to restore $233 million in FEMA Homeland Security Grant Program funding cut from nine states. [^042-a4]

The identical strategy was tried and failed during Trump’s first term. In 2017, Trump issued EO 13,768 (“Enhancing Public Safety in the Interior of the United States”) attempting the same approach. Judge Orrick blocked it. The Ninth Circuit affirmed in City and County of San Francisco v. Trump, 897 F.3d 1225 (2018), ruling the order violated separation of powers and the Spending Clause. The Biden administration ended the practice, and the Supreme Court never resolved the circuit split (the Second Circuit had disagreed in State of New York v. DOJ, 2020). [^042-a5]

Several DOJ offices provided $1.56 billion in grants to sanctuary jurisdictions in 2023. The affected programs include Byrne Justice Assistance Grants, Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) grants, State Criminal Alien Assistance Program (SCAAP), and Victims of Crime Act (VOCA) grants. The plaintiff cities and counties in San Francisco v. Trump said over $10 billion in total federal funding was at risk across all categories. [^042-a6]

DHS/FEMA cut $233 million from Homeland Security Grant Program funding to nine states. The cuts targeted Connecticut, Delaware, D.C., Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington. New York saw a 79% reduction (over $100 million). The money funds a $1 billion program with allocations based on assessed terrorism risk, passed through to police and fire departments. A federal judge ordered restoration of the funding. [^042-a7]

Strong Inferences

Sanctuary policies do not “give safe harbor to criminal illegal aliens.” The PNAS study by David K. Hausman (Stanford, 2020) — the most rigorous peer-reviewed analysis available — found that sanctuary policies reduced deportations of people without criminal records by half, but had no effect on deportations of people with violent criminal convictions. Sanctuary policies had no detectable effect on crime rates or police clearance rates. State and local police in sanctuary jurisdictions still enforce state and local criminal laws against all residents, including undocumented immigrants. The policies limit local cooperation with ICE detainer requests — which are not judicial warrants — not local criminal enforcement. [^042-a8]

Sanctuary jurisdictions have lower crime rates than comparable non-sanctuary jurisdictions. Tom Wong (UC San Diego, 2017) found 35.5 fewer crimes per 10,000 people in sanctuary counties compared to non-sanctuary counties (192.4 vs. 227.9 per 10,000). A 2022 study in Social Science Research by Martínez-Schuldt and Martínez found no evidence that sanctuary policies increase crime at the county level, with some evidence of decreased property crime. The mechanism: immigrants in sanctuary jurisdictions are more willing to report crimes to police, increasing trust between law enforcement and immigrant communities. [^042-a9]

The funding cuts, where attempted, threatened services that protect communities from crime. Programs at risk included gang violence prevention, youth violence prevention, sexual assault prevention, domestic violence victim services, opioid treatment, community policing (COPS grants), disaster relief, emergency response, and homelessness prevention. The administration was cutting crime-prevention funding in the name of fighting crime. [^042-a10]

The anti-commandeering doctrine makes the core approach constitutionally suspect. The Supreme Court has repeatedly held that the federal government cannot commandeer state and local governments to enforce federal law: Printz v. United States (1997), New York v. United States (1992), Murphy v. NCAA (2018). Conditioning federal grants on immigration enforcement cooperation — when Congress did not impose such conditions — violates both the Spending Clause (only Congress can set grant conditions) and the Tenth Amendment. The Ninth Circuit affirmed this during Trump’s first term. [^042-a11]

Informed Speculation

The administration appears to have pursued the sanctuary city funding strategy knowing it would likely be blocked by courts — the same approach failed during Trump 1.0 with the same judge, in the same court, on the same constitutional grounds. This suggests the policy’s primary function was political messaging rather than operational effectiveness. The strategy generated headlines about “cracking down on sanctuary cities” while the courts quietly ensured no significant funding was actually cut.

The DHS list of 500+ jurisdictions — published, immediately shown to be inaccurate, and taken down within days — reinforces this interpretation. Publishing a sprawling, error-laden list of “sanctuary jurisdictions” that included red-state counties served no enforcement purpose. It created a news cycle and a political talking point. The DOJ’s more carefully curated list of 32 jurisdictions, published months later, was the actual operational document — but by then the narrative had already been established.

The most telling evidence of the gap between announcement and outcome is that the claim is phrased in the past tense (“targeted… by cutting”) as though the cuts were accomplished, when in fact the courts blocked them. As of March 2026, the administration has not successfully implemented sustained funding cuts to sanctuary jurisdictions. The Ninth Circuit heard oral arguments in December 2025, with a panel that includes two Trump-appointed judges, but has not yet ruled.

Structural Analysis

Stated vs. revealed preferences. The stated preference is public safety — protecting communities from “criminal illegal aliens.” The revealed preference is political punishment of jurisdictions that exercise their constitutional prerogative not to enforce federal immigration law. The evidence makes this distinction sharp: the funding cuts targeted programs that protect public safety (COPS grants, gang prevention, victim services, disaster relief, FEMA), while the peer-reviewed evidence shows sanctuary policies do not increase crime and may reduce it. If the goal were public safety, you would not cut public safety funding.

The attribution problem. “Sanctuary jurisdictions giving safe harbor to criminal illegal aliens” implies causation: these policies cause criminals to receive protection. The research shows the opposite. Sanctuary policies reduce deportations of people without criminal records while not affecting deportations of people with violent convictions. The claim inverts the evidence.

Follow the legal trail. The administration’s own legal position has been rejected by every federal court to rule on it, across multiple judges and constitutional provisions. The Spending Clause argument (only Congress can set grant conditions) is particularly damaging because it is structural — it cannot be overcome by executive action. The anti-commandeering doctrine (Printz, Murphy, NFIB v. Sebelius) is established Supreme Court precedent. The administration is pursuing a strategy that four separate federal judges have found unconstitutional, on the same grounds the Ninth Circuit used to block the identical approach in 2018.

Cui bono. The political benefit of the sanctuary city fight accrues to the administration regardless of legal outcomes. Each court ruling generates a new news cycle (“liberal judges blocking border enforcement”), reinforcing the narrative of obstruction. The jurisdictions targeted are overwhelmingly blue cities and states, making this a form of partisan fiscal punishment dressed in immigration enforcement language. The Harvard Law Review analysis (February 2026) noted that in City of St. Paul v. Wright, Judge Mehta found “the only identifiable difference” between terminated and retained grants was “the grant recipient’s state’s political identity.”

The denominator problem. “Criminal illegal aliens” implies a population being specifically sheltered. But sanctuary policies apply to all residents and primarily affect people without criminal records. The Hausman study found sanctuary policies reduced deportations of non-criminals by 50% while having zero effect on deportations of violent criminals. The claim targets policies that demonstrably do not protect criminals.

Context the Framing Omits

The identical strategy was ruled unconstitutional during Trump’s first term. In 2017, Trump signed EO 13,768 attempting to cut funding to sanctuary cities. Judge Orrick blocked it. The Ninth Circuit affirmed. The Second Circuit disagreed in a separate case. The Supreme Court never resolved the split. In 2025, Trump tried again, and the same judge blocked it again, citing the same constitutional provisions.

Sanctuary policies are constitutionally protected under the anti-commandeering doctrine. The federal government cannot compel state and local governments to enforce federal law (Printz v. United States, 1997). States and localities have a constitutional right to decline to use their resources for federal immigration enforcement. This is not “obstruction” — it is federalism.

The peer-reviewed evidence consistently shows sanctuary policies do not increase crime. Multiple studies — Hausman (PNAS, 2020), Wong (2017), Martínez-Schuldt and Martínez (Social Science Research, 2022), and others — find no evidence that sanctuary policies increase crime and some evidence they reduce it. The mechanism is straightforward: when immigrants trust local police (because reporting a crime will not result in deportation), they cooperate with law enforcement, making communities safer.

The services threatened by funding cuts protect communities from crime. COPS grants fund community policing. Byrne JAG grants fund anti-gang programs and prosecutors. VOCA grants fund crime victim services. FEMA grants fund disaster response and terrorism prevention. Cutting these programs in the name of public safety is internally contradictory.

The DHS’s 500+ jurisdiction list was so inaccurate it had to be removed. The May 2025 list included jurisdictions in red states and was criticized by the National Sheriffs’ Association. The administration’s own designation process was unreliable, undermining the claim that targeting was based on public safety criteria rather than political considerations.

FEMA funding cuts targeted disaster preparedness and counterterrorism. The $233 million in Homeland Security Grant Program cuts reduced funding for terrorism prevention and emergency response — ostensibly core security functions — as punishment for immigration non-cooperation. New York’s 79% reduction removed over $100 million from counterterrorism programs in the nation’s highest-risk target.

Verdict

Factual core: The administration did attempt to cut federal grant funding to sanctuary jurisdictions through executive orders and directives. That part is true.

The claim is substantially misleading on multiple levels:

1. The funding cuts were blocked by federal courts as unconstitutional. The claim is phrased as an accomplished “win” (“targeted… by cutting”), but federal judges blocked the cuts repeatedly — in April, August, September, and December 2025. The identical approach was tried and failed during Trump’s first term. As of March 2026, no sustained funding cuts to sanctuary jurisdictions have been successfully implemented. The claim takes credit for an action that courts prevented.

2. “Giving safe harbor to criminal illegal aliens” is factually wrong. Peer-reviewed research (Hausman, PNAS 2020) definitively shows that sanctuary policies reduce deportations of people without criminal records while having no effect on deportations of people with violent criminal convictions. Sanctuary jurisdictions have lower crime rates than non-sanctuary jurisdictions (Wong, 2017). State and local police in sanctuary cities still enforce criminal laws against everyone. The policies limit cooperation with ICE administrative detainers, not criminal enforcement.

3. The funding cuts threatened the very programs that protect public safety. COPS grants, Byrne JAG grants, VOCA funds, FEMA counterterrorism grants, gang prevention, victim services, and domestic violence programs were all at risk. Cutting crime-prevention funding in the name of fighting crime is internally contradictory.

4. The approach is constitutionally suspect under established Supreme Court precedent. The anti-commandeering doctrine (Printz, Murphy, NFIB v. Sebelius) and the Spending Clause (only Congress can set grant conditions) directly prohibit what the administration attempted. Four separate federal judges found violations.

Framing as “win”: Misleading. The action was attempted but blocked by courts. The constitutional, factual, and empirical foundations of the claim are all wrong: the cuts were not implemented, sanctuary policies do not protect criminals, sanctuary cities have lower crime rates, and the approach violates established constitutional law.

What a reader should understand: The administration signed executive orders and directives attempting to cut federal funding to sanctuary jurisdictions, following the identical playbook from Trump’s first term. Federal courts blocked the cuts as unconstitutional — again — citing the Spending Clause, the anti-commandeering doctrine, and the Tenth Amendment. The claim that sanctuary policies “give safe harbor to criminal illegal aliens” is contradicted by peer-reviewed research: sanctuary policies reduce deportations of non-criminals by half while having zero effect on deportations of violent criminals, and sanctuary jurisdictions have lower crime rates. The programs threatened by the cuts — community policing, victim services, gang prevention, disaster relief, counterterrorism — are themselves public safety programs. The DHS’s own list of 500+ “sanctuary jurisdictions” was so inaccurate it had to be removed within days. This claim takes credit for a policy action that courts prevented, mischaracterizes the policies it targets, and contradicts the available evidence on crime and public safety.

Cross-References

• Item #44: “Filed multiple lawsuits against states and cities obstructing federal immigration law.” Directly related — the lawsuits are the legal enforcement arm of the same sanctuary city strategy. The courts’ responses to those lawsuits are what blocked the funding cuts described in Item #42.
• Item #45: “Conducted sustained interior enforcement operations in so-called ‘sanctuary’ cities, removing thousands of criminal illegal aliens from our streets.” Part of the same sanctuary city pressure campaign — enforcement operations conducted in sanctuary cities as both operational and political strategy, complementing the funding threats in Item #42.
• Item #41: The travel ban analysis shares the pattern of security framing for policies whose actual implementation has been blocked or limited by courts.

Sources

The White House. “Protecting American Communities from Criminal Aliens.” Executive Order 14287. April 28, 2025. https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/04/protecting-american-communities-from-criminal-aliens/

The White House. “Fact Sheet: President Donald J. Trump Protects American Communities from Criminal Aliens.” April 2025. https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/04/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-protects-american-communities-from-criminal-aliens/

Bondi, Pam. “Sanctuary Jurisdiction Directives.” U.S. Department of Justice Memorandum. February 5, 2025. https://www.justice.gov/ag/media/1388531/dl?inline=

U.S. Department of Justice. “U.S. Sanctuary Jurisdiction List Following Executive Order 14287.” Updated October 31, 2025. https://www.justice.gov/ag/us-sanctuary-jurisdiction-list-following-executive-order-14287-protecting-american-communities

U.S. Department of Homeland Security. “DHS Exposes Sanctuary Jurisdictions Defying Federal Immigration Law.” May 29, 2025. https://www.dhs.gov/news/2025/05/29/dhs-exposes-sanctuary-jurisdictions-defying-federal-immigration-law

Hausman, David K. “Sanctuary policies reduce deportations without increasing crime.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 117, no. 44 (2020): 27262-27267. https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2014673117

Wong, Tom K. “The Effects of Sanctuary Policies on Crime and the Economy.” Center for American Progress. January 2017. https://www.americanprogress.org/article/the-effects-of-sanctuary-policies-on-crime-and-the-economy/

Martínez-Schuldt, Ricardo D., and Daniel E. Martínez. “Do sanctuary policies increase crime? Contrary evidence from a county-level investigation in the United States.” Social Science Research 104 (2022). https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0049089X22000497

NPR. “Judge blocks Trump from cutting funding over ‘sanctuary’ policies.” August 23, 2025. https://www.npr.org/2025/08/23/g-s1-84863/judge-blocks-trump-from-cutting-funding-sanctuary-cities

NBC News. “Judge blocks Trump from cutting funding from 34 cities and counties over ‘sanctuary’ policies.” August 2025. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/trump-administration/judge-blocks-trump-cutting-funding-34-cities-counties-sanctuary-polici-rcna226730

CBS News. “Trump administration can’t require states to cooperate with immigration agents to get FEMA grants, judge rules.” September 2025. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-administration-immigration-fema-grants-ruling-sanctuary-state/

CBS News. “Trump’s legal crackdown on ‘sanctuary’ cities and states yields few results so far.” 2025. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-sanctuary-cities-crackdown-results/

Connecticut Attorney General. “Emergency Lawsuit to Protect Critical Homeland Security Funding from Politically Motivated Cuts.” September 30, 2025. https://portal.ct.gov/ag/press-releases/2025-press-releases/emergency-lawsuit-to-protect-critical-homeland-security-funding-from-politically-motivated-cuts

National Constitution Center. “The question of sanctuary jurisdictions returns to the courts.” 2025. https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/the-question-of-sanctuary-jurisdictions-returns-to-the-courts

Harvard Law Review Blog. “Challenging Politically Discriminatory Funding Cuts.” February 2026. https://harvardlawreview.org/blog/2026/02/challenging-politically-discriminatory-funding-cuts/

Reason / Volokh Conspiracy. “Federal Court Blocks Trump Executive Order Denying Federal Funds to Sanctuary Cities.” April 24, 2025. https://reason.com/volokh/2025/04/24/federal-court-blocks-trump-executive-order-denying-federal-funds-to-sanctuary-cities/

Public Rights Project. “San Francisco v. Trump: Sanctuary cities fact sheet.” 2025. https://www.publicrightsproject.org/san-francisco-v-trump-sanctuary-cities-fact-sheet/