Trump administration lawsuit against California the latest volley in war of words and litigation

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After a year when California filed more than two dozen lawsuits against the Trump administration over everything from environmental regulations to health care policy, the feds are firing back for the first time.

The Department of Justice lawsuit against California over state laws protecting immigrants represents Trump's strongest counterpunch so far to the Golden State's resistance against his policies -- and it illustrates how the courts have become the true battlefield between Sacramento and Washington, D.C.

As U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions visited the state capital Wednesday to promote the legal action, the drama gave California politicians on both sides of the aisle the opportunity to fire up their respective bases. And with the White House confirming Wednesday that Trump himself plans to visit Southern California next week, there's no chance of a detente anytime soon.

"We're seeing open warfare between the federal government and the state government," said Jessica Levinson, a professor at Loyola Law School. The latest lawsuit is "going to be a case that defines the contours of federal power versus state power in immigration."

Trump, Sessions and other administration officials have previously threatened to yank federal funds for California or to arrest local officials in sanctuary cities, but "The United States of America v. The State of California" is a marked escalation. It's the first time the federal government has directly sued a jurisdiction over a sanctuary law.

The suit, which also named Gov. Jerry Brown and Attorney General Xavier Becerra as defendants (but misspelled Brown's name), takes aim at California's "sanctuary state" law as well as two other state laws aimed at shielding undocumented immigrants. The Department of Justice is seeking a preliminary injunction to block California from enforcing those laws.

The Trump administration is arguing that the sanctuary laws violate the U.S. Constitution's Supremacy Clause, which generally holds that federal law prevails in conflicts between state and federal laws. But California officials say their laws protect immigrants and don't unduly restrict the feds' ability to enforce immigration law.

The fate of immigration policy in California is increasingly in the hands of federal judges. Becerra has sued the Trump administration several times over immigration, leading to a nationwide injunction against Trump's move to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program protecting young undocumented immigrants. Lawsuits by several sanctuary cities aimed at preventing the administration from denying them federal funding are also working through the courts. Another California legal action against Trump's plans to build a border wall was struck down by a federal judge.

The latest legal salvo is a sign of the profound role reversal the parties have taken when it comes to immigration policy and states' rights. The Justice Department's complaint cites the 2012 Supreme Court case United States v. Arizona, in which the Obama administration successfully argued that portions of an Arizona law aimed at bolstering immigration enforcement were unconstitutional because they conflicted with federal immigration law.

Meanwhile, California and other liberal states in the Trump era have followed the playbook of Texas under Obama, which sued the federal government and successfully derailed policies like Obama's bid to expand deportation protection to millions more undocumented immigrants.

"We believe we are in full compliance with the federal constitution and federal law," Becerra told reporters Tuesday, citing the Constitution's Tenth Amendment, which protects states' rights.

Federal Judge John A. Mendez, a George W. Bush appointee, will preside over the Trump administration's lawsuit. Some legal observers believe the administration decided to file the case in the state's Eastern District, based in Sacramento, in part to avoid the more liberal judges in the Northern District, based in San Francisco.

Santa Clara University law professor Pratheepan Gulasekaram argued that the sanctuary state law had a good chance of surviving the federal challenge. "Several courts have found that there is no real conflict here between limited non-cooperation policies and the federal law," he said. One of the other laws challenged in the lawsuit, which restricts state employers from allowing immigration agents into their workplaces, was more of an open legal question, he said.

The lawsuit also spells out in the clearest detail yet how California's much-vaunted resistance has thrown a wrench in the wheels of the administration's deportation plans. In a 44-page affidavit filed with the suit, Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Thomas Homan laid out the many ways the state was hampering his ability to detain undocumented immigrants, from not sharing information to banning agents from prisons to shutting down ICE's access to the state's gang database.

Even as the state rushed to play legal defense, politicians on both sides of California's spectrum issued a flurry of exclamation-point-filled responses. Brown declared the lawsuit "SAD!!!" in a Trump-like statement, while the Democrats running to replace him decried Sessions' move. State Senate leader Kevin de León -- whose bid for the U.S. Senate is premised on opposing Trump -- showed up at protests outside Sessions' speech and called in the legal counsel of former Attorney General Eric Holder to file an amicus brief opposing the administration.

The state's top Republican candidates were just as fired up. "We did it!!" trumpeted governor hopeful and Assemblyman Travis Allen in a tweet. "JUSTICE COMES TO CALIFORNIA." His rival, businessman John Cox, aimed to catch some of the momentum by launching a new statewide radio ad attacking sanctuary cities.

But while the GOP candidates are playing to their base with the sanctuary-bashing, polls have shown that California voters at large back sanctuary policies in general and the sanctuary state law specifically.

Immigration retaking the political spotlight also threatens to distract from the economic messaging California Republicans are focusing on as they enter a challenging midterm season. GOP strategists see their best hope in talking up their efforts to repeal the new state gas tax and the Republican-passed tax cuts, which are gaining popularity.

Still, it's in the political interests of both Trump and California Democrats to keep the firefight over sanctuary and immigration policy going -- few issues animate greater passion in both red and blue America.

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(c)2018 the Contra Costa Times (Walnut Creek, Calif.)

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