Breaking from every other U.S. appeals court, a federal court that President Trump flipped last year cleared the way Monday for the Justice Department to withhold grant money from sanctuary jurisdictions. The dissenting judges from the deeply divided court called the ruling “astonishing,” reports Courthouse News Service. “Until today, every single circuit judge to have considered the questions presented by this appeal has resolved them the same way,” wrote U.S. Circuit Judge Raymond Lohier, an Obama appointee. “That’s twelve judges … appointed by six different presidents, sitting in four separate circuits, representing a remarkable array of views and backgrounds, responsible for roughly forty percent of the United States population, who, when asked whether the Attorney General may impose the challenged conditions, have all said the same thing: No.”
The full U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit was asked to take up the case after a three-judge panel allowed the Trump administration in February to block cities and states with policies protecting undocumented immigrants from receiving up to $385 million in justice assistance grants. Blue states sued over the policy, mostly succeeding before the First, Third, Seventh and Ninth Circuit U.S. Courts of Appeal. Alone in reversing that trend is the New York City-based Second Circuit, which Trump turned conservative with an appointment late last year. On Monday, the Second Circuit was evenly divided 6-6 on whether to hold an en banc rehearing, prompting several critical dissents from the liberal wing of its 13-member bench. “I am, frankly, astounded that my colleagues did not find this a case of exceptional importance warranting en banc review,” U.S. Circuit Judge Rosemary Pooler, a Clinton-appointee, wrote in her dissent.