Attorney General Bill Barr can implement President Donald Trump’s decision to withhold federal funding from “sanctuary cities” that attempt to thwart federal immigration laws, the Ninth Circuit appeals court ruled on Friday.
The Trump administration is denying some federal law enforcement grant money to sanctuary cities. Los Angeles challenged that decision in federal court, arguing that the decision violates federal law and limits on Congress’s authority under the Spending Clause of the U.S. Constitution.
A 1994 federal law authorizes the Department of Justice (DOJ) “to provide a range of federal assistance to state and local law enforcement,” Judge Sandra Ikuta wrote on Friday, describing DOJ’s administering “a competitive grant program that allocates a limited pool of funds.”
“In 2017, Los Angeles applied for a grant, but failed to score highly enough to earn one,” Ikuta continued for the three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
Congress’s law “linked to the goal of enhancing the crime prevention function of state and local law enforcement through working with the community,” the San Francisco-based court continued. Federal law at 34 U.S.C. § 10388 authorizes DOJ to “promulgate regulations and guidelines to carry out” the grant program to achieve the program’s goals.
“The Application Guidelines set out a series of questions and instructions that allow an applicant to explain why it is seeking a grant and why it is best qualified to receive one,” wrote Ikuta. “Among other things, an applicant must explain its need for federal assistance, provide information about its fiscal health, agree to comply with various provisions of federal law, and provide additional information and assurances of various kinds.”
“DOJ evaluates, scores, and ranks the submitted applications, then awards grant funds to the highest scoring applicants,” the opinion noted. “The scoring process is designed to allocate federal assistance to programs, focuses, or conduct that DOJ deems to best further statutory purposes and federal goals.”
The court noted that applicants received
http://www.breitbart.com/immigration/2019/07/15/ninth-circuit-rules-trump-sanctuary-cities-case/
Realist - Everybody in America is soft, and hates conflict. The cure for this, both in politics and social life, is the same -- hardihood. Give them raw truth.
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