City of S.F. v. Barr

• Decision Date: 13 July 2020
• Docket Number: No. 18-17311,No. 18-17308,18-17308
• Parties: CITY AND COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. William P. BARR, Attorney General; Alan R. Hanson; United States Department of Justice; Matt M. Dummermuth, Defendants-Appellants. State of California, ex rel. Xavier Becerra, in his official capacity as Attorney General of the State of California, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. William P. Barr, Attorney General; Alan R. Hanson; United States Department of Justice; Matt M. Dummermuth; Phil E. Keith, Defendants-Appellants.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit

965 F.3d 753

CITY AND COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO, Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.William P. BARR, Attorney General; Alan R. Hanson; United States Department of Justice; Matt M. Dummermuth, Defendants-Appellants.

State of California, ex rel. Xavier Becerra, in his official capacity as Attorney General of the State of California, Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.William P. Barr, Attorney General; Alan R. Hanson; United States Department of Justice; Matt M. Dummermuth; Phil E. Keith, Defendants-Appellants.

No. 18-17308

No. 18-17311

United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.

Argued and Submitted December 2, 2019 San Francisco, California

Filed July 13, 2020

Mark B. Stern (argued), Daniel Tenny, Katherine Twomey Allen, Brad Hinshelwood, and Laura E. Myron, Appellate Staff; Hashim M. Mooppan, Deputy Assistant Attorney General; David L. Anderson, United States Attorney; Joseph H. Hunt, Assistant Attorney General; United States Department of Justice, Civil Division, Washington, D.C.; for Defendants-Appellants.

Aileen M. McGrath (argued), Jesse C. Smith, Ronald P. Flynn, Yvonne R. Mere, Tara M. Steeley and Sara J. Eisenberg, Deputy City Attorneys; Dennis J. Herrera, City Attorney; Office of the City Attorney, San Francisco, California; for Plaintiff-Appellee City and County of San Francisco.

Joshua A. Klein (argued), Deputy Solicitor General; Kristin A. Liska, Associate Deputy Solicitor General; Lee Sherman, Deputy Attorney General; Sarah E. Belton, Supervising Deputy Attorney General; Michael L. Newman, Senior Assistant Attorney General; Edward C. DuMont, Solicitor General; Xavier Becerra, Attorney General; Office of the Attorney General, Oakland, California; for Plaintiff-Appellee State of California.

Matthew J. Piers, Chirag G. Badlani, and Caryn C. Lederer, Hughes Socol Peters Piers Resnick & Dym Ltd., Chicago, Illinois; Mary B. McCord, Joshua A. Geltzer, Nicolas Y. Riley, and Daniel B. Rice, Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection, Washington, D.C.; for Amici Curiae Current and Former Prosecutors and Law Enforcement Leaders.

Elizabeth B. Wydra, Brianne J. Gorod, and David H. Gans, Constitutional Accountability Center, Washington, D.C., for Amici Curiae Members of Congress.

James R. Williams, County Counsel; Greta S. Hansen, Chief Assistant County Counsel; Kavita Narayan and Laura S. Trice, Lead Deputy County Counsel; H. Luke Edwards, Fellow; Office of the County Counsel, County of Santa Clara, San Jose, California; for Amici Curiae 43 Counties, Cities, and Municipal Agencies; National League of Cities; International Municipal Lawyers Association; and International City/County Management Association.

Robert W. Perrin, Sarah F. Mitchell, and Michael A. Hale, Latham & Watkins LLP, Los Angeles, California, for Amicus Curiae Anti-Defamation League.

Rachel S. Brass, Gibson Dunn & Crutcher LLP, San Francisco, California; Abiel Garcia and Ian F. Sprague, Gibson Dunn & Crutcher LLP, Los Angeles, California; for Amicus Curiae Public Counsel.

Barbara D. Underwood, Solicitor General; Anisha S. Dasgupta, Deputy Solicitor General; Eric R. Haren, Special Counsel; Linda Fang, Assistant Solicitor General of Counsel; Letitia James, Attorney General; Office of the Attorney General, New York, New York; Phil Weiser Attorney General, Denver, Colorado; William Tong, Attorney General, Hartford, Connecticut; Kathleen Jennings, Attorney General, Wilmington, Delaware; Kwame Raoul, Attorney General, Chicago, Illinois; Brian E. Frosh, Attorney General, Baltimore, Maryland; Maura Healey, Attorney General, Boston, Massachusetts; Dana Nessel, Attorney General, Lansing, Michigan; Keith Ellison, Attorney General, St. Paul, Minnesota; Gurbir S. Grewal, Attorney General, Trenton, New Jersey; Hector Balderas, Attorney General, Santa Fe, New Mexico; Ellen F. Rosenblum, Attorney General, Salem, Oregon; Peter F. Neronha, Attorney General, Providence, Rhode Island; Thomas J. Donovan, Jr., Attorney General, Montpelier, Vermont; Robert W. Ferguson, Attorney General, Olympia, Washington; Karl A. Racine, Attorney General, Washington, D.C.; for Amici Curiae States of New York, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington, and the District of Columbia.

Omar C. Jadwat and Lee Gelernt, American Civil Liberties Union, New York, New York; Spencer E. Amdur and Cody H. Wofsy, American Civil Liberties Union, San Francisco, California; Mark Fleming and Katherine E. Melloy Goettel, National Immigrant Justice Center, Chicago, Illinois; for Amici Curiae American Civil Liberties Union, National Immigrant Justice Center, National Immigration Law Center, Washington Defender Association, Southern Poverty Law Center, Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, and New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice.

W. Hardy Callcott, Naomi A. Igra, and Mark Prior, Sidley Austin LLP, San Francisco, California, for Amici Curiae Immigrant Legal Resource Center and Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Asian Law Caucus.

Before: William A. Fletcher, Richard R. Clifton, and Eric D. Miller, Circuit Judges.

OPINION

CLIFTON, Circuit Judge:

The federal government has provided funding for state and local criminal justice programs through Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grants since 2006. In Fiscal Year ("FY") 2017, the Attorney General and the Department of Justice ("DOJ") announced three new conditions that state and local governments must satisfy to receive Byrne grants. Two conditions require recipient jurisdictions to provide the Department of Homeland Security ("DHS") with (1) access to the jurisdiction's detention or correctional facilities to interview people in custody about their right to be in the United States (the "Access Condition"), and (2) advance notice of the scheduled release of aliens in the jurisdiction's custody (the "Notice Condition"). The third condition requires jurisdictions to certify that their laws and policies comply with 8 U.S.C. § 1373, a federal statute prohibiting states and localities from restricting the flow of "information regarding [an individual's] citizenship or immigration status" between state and local officials and DHS (the "Certification Condition").

Plaintiffs—the City and County of San Francisco and the State of California—are so-called "sanctuary" jurisdictions, which have enacted laws that limit their employees’ authority to assist in the enforcement of federal immigration laws. Plaintiffs sued DOJ, the Attorney General, and other DOJ officials (collectively, "DOJ") to prevent DOJ from denying funding of Byrne grants for failure to comply with the Access, Notice, and Certification Conditions (collectively, the "Challenged Conditions"). Plaintiffs also sought a declaratory judgment that their respective "sanctuary" laws do not violate 8 U.S.C. § 1373, or alternatively, that 8 U.S.C. § 1373 is unconstitutional. On summary judgment, the district court entered declaratory relief in favor of Plaintiffs on all of their legal claims. It also permanently enjoined DOJ, among other things, from "[u]sing the Section 1373 certification condition, and the access and notice conditions ... as requirements for Byrne JAG grant funding." It extended relief to the entire country by providing that the permanent injunction applied to "any California state entity, any California political subdivision, or any jurisdiction in the United States."

Recent precedential decisions by this court have done the heavy lifting with regard to the merits of the relief granted by the district court. We held that DOJ lacked statutory authority to impose the Access and Notice Conditions on Byrne funds in reviewing a preliminary injunction obtained by the City of Los Angeles. See City of Los Angeles v. Barr , 941 F.3d 931 (9th Cir. 2019). Consistent with our discussion in City of Los Angeles , we affirm the injunction barring DOJ from using the Access and Notice Conditions as Byrne funding requirements for any California state entity or political subdivision.

We also uphold the injunction barring DOJ from denying or withholding Byrne funds on account of the Certification Condition based on Plaintiffs’ alleged non-compliance with 8 U.S.C. § 1373. We narrowly construed the statutory language of 8 U.S.C. § 1373 in an action filed by DOJ to enjoin California's enforcement of its newly-enacted Values Act, Cal. Gov't Code § 7284 et seq. , to conclude that the Values Act did not conflict with § 1373. See United States v. California , 921 F.3d 865 (9th Cir. 2019), cert. denied , 590 U.S. ––––, ––– S.Ct. ––––, ––– L.Ed.2d ––––, 2020 WL 3146844 (U.S. Jun. 15, 2020) (No. 19-532 ). Consistent with our analysis in that case, we hold that the remaining California and San Francisco laws at issue here also comply with 8 U.S.C. § 1373 and cannot be cited in relation to the Certification Condition as a basis to deny Byrne funding.

With regard to the geographical reach of the relief granted by the district court, however, we conclude that the district court abused its discretion in issuing an injunction that extended nationwide. Although San Francisco offered evidence that some jurisdictions across the country might welcome an injunction against the Challenged Conditions, nothing in the record or in the nature of the claims suggests that the relief granted by the district court needs to be extended to state and local governments outside of California, not parties to this litigation, in order to fully shield Plaintiffs. Therefore, we vacate the nationwide reach of the permanent injunction and limit its reach to California's geographical boundaries.

I. Background

The Byrne program is the "primary provider" of federal grant dollars to support state and local criminal justice programs. DOJ's Office of Justice Programs, which administers the grant, disburses over $80 million in awards each year. California has used prior Byrne awards to support programs focused on criminal drug enforcement, violent crime, and anti-gang...