Cody Wofsy

For months, the Trump administration has tried to bully local communities into signing up to become extensions of the federal deportation system. That campaign of threats and public shaming based on flawed data — which has been mostly unsuccessful — suffered another major blow yesterday. A federal court in San Francisco ruled in two cases that the president’s threats were unconstitutional, and stopped the government from carrying them out anywhere in the country. The ruling vindicates the constitutional rights of cities, counties, and states to refuse to participate in deportations. And like the court orders halting the president’s Muslim ban, the ruling shows the crucial role that courts play in preventing presidential overreach.