EO 14287 directs Attorney General to publish sanctuary-jurisdiction list

On 28 April 2025 President Donald J. Trump signed Executive Order 14287, “Protecting American Communities From Criminal Aliens.”¹ Section 2 directs the Attorney General, “in coordination with” the Secretary of Homeland Security, to “publish a list of States and local jurisdictions that obstruct the enforcement of Federal immigration laws” within 30 days, to “update the list as needed,” and to “notify each sanctuary jurisdiction regarding its defiance of Federal immigration law enforcement and any potential violations of Federal criminal law.”¹ Section 4 directs DHS, in coordination with the AG, to develop “guidance, rules, or other appropriate mechanisms” to ensure that federal benefits delivered through private entities are not granted to ineligible persons; Section 5 directs identification of state or local laws, policies and practices that “favor aliens over any groups of American citizens,” including in-state tuition arrangements that the order describes as in tension with INA § 505 (8 U.S.C. § 1623).¹² On the same day, the President signed Executive Order 14288, “Strengthening and Unleashing America’s Law Enforcement to Pursue Criminals and Protect Innocent Citizens,” directing review and modification of federal consent decrees with state and local police and expansion of legal-defence resources for officers.³ EO 14287 sits in the lineage of EO 13768 of 25 January 2017 — § 9 of which the Ninth Circuit struck on Spending Clause and separation-of-powers grounds in City and County of San Francisco v. Trump, 897 F.3d 1225 (9th Cir. 2018) — and Executive Order 14159 of 20 January 2025 (“Protecting the American People Against Invasion”), §§ 17 and 19 of which were preliminarily enjoined by Judge William H. Orrick (N.D. Cal.) on 24 April 2025 in City and County of San Francisco v. Trump, No. 3:25-cv-01350.⁴⁵⁶

1. Federal grant conditions tied to compliance with immigration enforcement face the Spending Clause limits established in South Dakota v. Dole, 483 U.S. 203 (1987), and the coercion limit applied in National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius, 567 U.S. 519 (2012); conditions must be unambiguous, related to the federal purpose and not coercive.⁷⁸ The on-point sanctuary- funding precedents are City of Chicago v. Sessions, 888 F.3d 272 (7th Cir. 2018) (Byrne JAG conditions), and City and County of San Francisco v. Trump, 897 F.3d 1225 (9th Cir. 2018) (EO 13768 § 9).⁹¹⁰

2. The Tenth Amendment anti-commandeering doctrine, developed in Printz v. United States, 521 U.S. 898 (1997), and Murphy v. NCAA, 584 U.S. 453 (2018), prohibits the federal government from compelling state or local officers to administer federal law.¹¹¹² Section 642 of the INA (8 U.S.C. § 1373) and 8 U.S.C. § 1644 prohibit state and local restrictions on information-sharing about immigration status — the federal statutes whose alleged violation grounds the AG’s “defiance” notification under EO 14287 § 2.¹³¹⁴

3. The order also invokes federal criminal statutes for downstream enforcement: 18 U.S.C. §§ 371 (conspiracy), 372 (obstruction of officers), 1501 et seq. (obstruction of process), 1961 et seq. (RICO); and 8 U.S.C. § 1324 (harbouring), § 1611(c) (federal benefits restrictions), § 1623 (state in-state tuition limitations).¹⁵¹⁶