Nearly three dozen cities and counties, including Chicago and Los Angeles, want to join as plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the Trump administration’s targeting of jurisdictions with “sanctuary city” policies.
An amended suit that includes more plaintiffs is warranted in light of a “flurry of additional executive actions” from the administration since the first amended complaint, a motion filed Tuesday states, including a directive they say threatens funding for disaster response and crime victim support.
Administration attorneys indicated they would oppose the amended complaint, court records show. It’s up to District Judge William Orrick of the US District Court for the Northern District of California to determine whether the expanded complaint can be filed.
The prospective new plaintiffs include jurisdictions across the country, among them Boston, Denver, and Baltimore. The 16 existing plaintiffs include San Francisco and Seattle.
All of them have “made the lawful decision to limit the use of their local resources to assist with federal civil immigration enforcement,” the proposed new complaint says.
“These local policy choices are not designed to, and do not, interfere with federal law enforcement, but instead ensure that all residents of Plaintiffs’ communities—regardless of immigration status—feel safe reporting crimes, going to schools, seeking medical care, and accessing critical public services,” the proposed complaint states.
The plaintiffs seek to sue the administration over a slew of executive orders and administrative actions targeting “sanctuary” jurisdictions, including threats to cut off federal funding for matters that have nothing to do with immigration, according to the proposed complaint.
The existing plaintiffs won a preliminary injunction in April that barred the administration from revoking funds from sanctuary cities. And Orrick later explicitly stated that the administration couldn’t use new executive orders to make an “end run” around the injunction.
The administration has appealed the injunction to the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
The case is City and County of S.F. v. Trump, N.D. Cal., No. 3:25-cv-01350, motion filed 7/8/25.