On Monday, the Trump administration stepped up its fight with cities and states run by Democrats over immigration enforcement. The president signed executive orders that, according to his press secretary, will “unleash America’s law enforcement to pursue criminals” and tell federal agencies to make a list of “sanctuary cities” that do not cooperate with immigration agents.

Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said in the morning news conference that the executive order on sanctuary cities was “focused on protecting American communities from criminal aliens.”

“This president is trying to simply enforce our nation’s immigration laws and is facing roadblock after roadblock,” said Leavitt. “… We’re going to continue to forge ahead with this mass deportation campaign.”

The “Protecting American Communities from Criminal Aliens” order says that local and state officials who attempt to stop the enforcement of federal immigration laws are engaging in “a lawless insurrection against the supremacy of Federal law and the Federal Government’s obligation to defend the territorial sovereignty of the United States.”

If cities and states on the Trump administration’s list of “sanctuary jurisdictions” continue to fight Trump’s immigration plan, they could lose federal funds and be sued for criminal and civil rights violations. It’s possible that they would be charged with breaking the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.

The order tells Attorney General Pam Bondi to “take appropriate action against” cities and states that “favor aliens over any groups of American citizens in ways that are illegal and preempted by Federal law.” Bondi should do this in collaboration with the secretary of Homeland Security. It could also go after 24 states, like California, and D.C., that let some foreigners pay less for college at public universities than U.S. citizens who live outside of those states.

During the meeting with Tom Homan, the border chief, Leavitt said, “It’s pretty easy.” According to the law, people should follow it and not get in the way of federal immigration officials and law enforcement officers who are just trying to keep our neighborhoods safe.

As Trump gets close to 100 days in office, he is focused on immigration, which was a big part of his campaign for president in 2024. On Monday, the White House put up a line of signs around its yard with mug shots of 100 people who were arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

“ARRESTED” was written on the signs above a picture of the person and a list of the crimes they were accused of, such as murder, rape, and selling fentanyl.

She said that after the two orders are signed, the president will have signed more than 140 orders in three months, which is “rapidly approaching the total number signed by the Biden administration over the course of four years in office.”

But the government is already having trouble with the law when it tries to punish sanctuary cities.

A federal judge in California last week said that the Trump administration couldn’t deny or condition the use of federal funds to San Francisco and more than a dozen other cities and towns that don’t cooperate with federal immigration enforcement.

Parts of Trump’s executive orders were ruled to be unconstitutional by U.S. District Judge William Orrick. He also said that the defendants could not “directly or indirectly take any action to withhold, freeze, or condition federal funds.”

In an interview with The Times, Rob Bonta, the attorney general of California, said that the state would fight Trump whenever he broke the law.

“We are completely committed to suing the president whenever we have a case and he’s broken the law, and we will,” Bonta told The Times before the orders were made public. “In each house of the Legislature, we have supermajorities.” Every officer of the Constitution is a Democrat. They know that they need to protect California’s rights, money, and future.

As soon as the orders were made public, Bonta’s office said it would look them over and take formal action if necessary.

Hugo Soto-Martínez, a member of the Los Angeles City Council, said that the president’s orders were “just another scare tactic.”

“Trump tried this before and failed because it’s against the law,” Soto-Martínez said in a statement. “This is just another scare tactic to get us to follow his authoritarian agenda — but it’s not going to work.”

California is one of the most important states in the U.S.’s immigration fight because it is a blue state with the most illegal immigrants.

In 2018, during Trump’s first year in office, California lawmakers passed SB 54, also known as the California Values Act, a groundbreaking sanctuary law that makes it harder for local and federal police to work together.

There is a lawyer named Angela Chan who helped write SB 54. She said that Trump’s executive orders seem to be a response to the recent loss in the San Francisco case.