President Donald Trump’s administration has faced major backlash from the American people due to the immigration crackdowns that have taken place since Trump’s re-election. Yet, in the past few weeks, the death of Renee Nicole Good at the hands of an ICE agent has further ignited protests from both citizens and politicians in standing their ground against the presence of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials.
On Tuesday, Jan. 13, at the Detroit Economic Club, Trump warned that beginning Feb. 1, he plans to withhold funding from any states whose local governments are resisting his immigration crackdown. This threat builds on one he made back in 2025, when an executive order signed by Trump claimed he planned to withhold federal funding from sanctuary cities.
The strict definition of what classifies a city as a sanctuary has not been clearly set, but in essence, it limits a state or local government’s cooperation with federal immigration enforcement as an effort to create a sense of trust between officials and immigrants residing in the city.
Back in April 2025, U.S. District Judge William Orrick of California — a federal judge whom Former President Barack Obama nominated during his time in office — ruled this executive order to be “unconstitutional.” While Orrick has stated that a similar case was argued during Trump’s first term in office, Republicans’ “well-founded fear of enforcement is even stronger than it was in 2017.”
Trump has claimed that his plan to withhold funding stems from sanctuary cities and states’ efforts in doing “everything possible to protect criminals at the expense of American citizens and [because] it breeds fraud and crime.” Statistics have shown that “US-born citizens are over 2 times more likely to be arrested for violent crimes.”
Last year, the Department of Justice (DOJ) published a list of cities, states and counties it deems to fall under the sanctuary jurisdiction, which are overwhelmingly led by Democrats. Among the states listed are California, Chicago, Minnesota and New York — all of which have experienced immigration raids in the past couple of months.
