Los Angeles City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto announced on July 14 that the city of Los Angeles has joined two lawsuits against the Trump administration to protect federal funds and stop executive overreach.

In King County v. Turner, the city joined a coalition of local governments led by King County, Washington to challenge unlawful conditions tied to funding from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Department of Transportation and Department of Health and Human Services. In San Francisco v. Trump, the lead plaintiffs, the city and county of San Francisco and the county of Santa Clara, petitioned the court for permission to add Los Angeles and a coalition of other cities and counties as new plaintiffs to a pending lawsuit seeking to prevent the Trump administration from enforcing executive orders that punish and withhold federal funding to sanctuary cities.

“This administration is unlawfully threatening to withhold hundreds of millions of dollars that fund essential public safety and services. The attempt to cudgel our city by imposing unlawful conditions on essential allocations and grants violates the Constitution and impermissibly interferes with our core functions, sovereignty and local control,” Feldstein Soto said. “Any loss in funding would have a devastating impact on the city’s budget and overall finances.”

Trump has issued numerous executive orders directing his administration, including the Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security, to withhold federal funds and penalize “sanctuary” jurisdictions. On Inauguration Day, Trump issued an executive order to force local authorities to carry out federal civil immigration activities. He then issued another executive order which directed the DOJ and DHS to withhold federal funds from jurisdictions that refuse to use local resources to carry out his immigration agenda. The two lawsuits allege that the president’s actions are unconstitutional.

Specifically, the coalition in San Francisco v. Trump alleges that the executive orders violate the Tenth Amendment, Separation of Powers, the Spending Clause and the Due Process Clause, and seeks to enjoin the administration from enforcing it.

In King County v. Turner, the coalition is challenging Trump administration officials in numerous departments, including HUD, DOT and HHS, who are authorized to disperse federal grants. The lawsuit stipulates that only Congress, and not the president, can establish permissible conditions that agencies may impose upon a grant award.

Through litigation, the city is seeking to protect more than $470 million in grant funds that would fund, among other things, the purchase of new transit buses, airport infrastructure improvements and housing and community development programs.

For information, visit cityattorney.lacity.gov.