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Cities and counties that have strongly backed the administration’s immigration crackdown nonetheless found themselves on a lengthy list of locales being warned to change their policies.
May 31, 2025, 5:02 a.m. ET
The January vote was unanimous. Huntington Beach, Calif., was “a non-sanctuary city for illegal immigration,” its City Council declared.
So local officials in the conservative Orange County coastal redoubt found it rather surprising to find on Friday morning that their city had been included on a list of “sanctuary jurisdictions,” which, the Department of Homeland Security charged, “are deliberately and shamefully obstructing the enforcement of federal immigration laws.”
“I’ve already called somebody with the feds and said this couldn’t be further from the truth,” said Huntington Beach’s mayor, Pat Burns, “so let’s straighten it out.”
“I’d love to know, really, who came up with this list,” he added. “It’s very negligent.”
Huntington Beach is one of more than 600 cities, counties and states that the federal government has accused of shielding “dangerous criminal aliens.” The list, which was published on Thursday, was mandated by an April executive order that explicitly threatened the jurisdictions with the termination of federal contracts and declared they might even be breaking the law.
Some of the jurisdictions on the list had indeed designated themselves as sanctuary cities in resolutions or executive orders. Officials in other places argued that the phrase “sanctuary city” did not technically apply, though they had pledged to protect immigrants.
But mixed among them were many counties and cities that openly support efforts to apprehend and deport immigrants, or have even been actively cooperating with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Officials in other places that had voted overwhelmingly for President Trump but were far from the front lines of the immigration debate were simply bewildered.
