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The California Report

Legal Battle Pits Bay Area Counties Against Trump Administration Over Sanctuary Policies

Keith Mizuguchi
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San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu speaks during a press conference with elected and public safety officials and labor leaders in front of City Hall in San Francisco on Jan. 28, 2025, to reaffirm San Francisco’s commitment to being a Sanctuary City. (Beth LaBerge/KQED)

Here are the morning’s top stories on Monday, March 17, 2025…

  • President Donald Trump has been looking to punish sanctuary cities since his first presidency — but last time around, his administration repeatedly ended up on the losing side in court. That hasn’t stopped him from trying again.
  • State Farm policyholders could soon see their bills go up. That’s after California’s Department of Insurance announced tentative approval of an emergency rate hike. 
  • California’s Republican delegates elected Corrin Rankin as their party’s next chairwoman at the state GOP convention in Sacramento over the weekend.

Sanctuary Policies Once Again Challenged In Court

In 2017, former San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera stood in City Hall and announced a lawsuit against the Trump administration. It was over an executive order that sought to strip the city of federal law enforcement funds because of its decades-old law prohibiting local officials from participating in immigration enforcement. “President Trump’s executive order tries to turn city and state employees into federal immigration officers. That is unconstitutional,” Herrera said at the time.

Last month, eight years later, current San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu stood in the same building to announce a nearly identical suit. “Immigration enforcement is the federal government’s responsibility,” Chiu said. “Sanctuary policies prioritize using our scarce local law enforcement resources to actually fight crime, not do the job of the federal government.”

Chiu is suing, again, because despite the city’s success in lower courts eight years ago, none of the sanctuary cases filed during Trump’s first term made it to the U.S. Supreme Court. So in 2025, both sides are trying again: San Francisco and Santa Clara counties are leading a suit over Trump’s expanded order to strip sanctuary cities and counties of all federal funding, not just law enforcement grants.

And the Trump administration has filed two lawsuits of its own — one against Illinois and one against New York State — over their laws limiting cooperation with federal immigration enforcement officials.

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At issue are fundamental disagreements over the separation of powers between federal and state governments. On one side, the administration is arguing sanctuary policies violate the Constitution’s supremacy clause, which establishes that federal law takes precedence over state law if the two conflict. On the other side, cities, counties and states contend that the 10th Amendment of the constitution, which divides power between the federal and state governments, offers them legal protection.

California Grants State Farm’s Emergency Rate Hike 

State Farm policyholders in California are likely to soon see sizable increases on their bills after Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara approved the company’s request for an emergency rate hike, state regulators announced Friday morning.

The approval comes with provisions: The insurer will have to present financial records at a public hearing on April 8 to establish its “dire financial condition” before the rate increase can take effect, the California Department of Insurance said in a statement. Additionally, Lara is asking State Farm’s California arm to pause non-renewals and ask for a $500 million infusion of capital from its parent company. State Farm has said it would continue all existing policies for “at least one year” if the rate increase is approved.

State Farm requested its emergency rate hike in February, saying it was needed to avert financial disaster after January’s Los Angeles County wildfires forced it to process more than 2,000 claims and pay out an estimated $7 billion in losses and damages. The average increase would be 22% for homeowners insurance, 15% for condominium owners insurance, and 38% for renters insurance.

California GOP Elects New Chairperson

After flipping three seats in the state Legislature last fall and increasing President Donald Trump’s vote share in nearly every county, California Republicans are seeking to capitalize on the momentum this year as they try to win back congressional seats and claw their way out of superminority status in the state capital.

At their spring organizing convention this past weekend in Sacramento, delegates selected Corrin Rankin as the new chair of the party. Rankin said Sunday that the GOP will be “going on the offense” and expanding efforts to convert voters in Democratic strongholds like Los Angeles and the Bay Area.

Rankin is the party’s first Black chairperson.

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