'This cannot be normalized': Blue cities and states rebuff White House over immigration enforcement

Source: Politico

08/20/2025 06:12 PM EDT


NEW YORK — Attorney General Pam Bondi’s fresh threats to Democrat-led cities and states demanding they drop their “sanctuary” policies is being met this week with a collective nope.

Leaders ranging from the governors of California, Illinois and Minnesota to the mayors of New York City, Denver and Boston are standing their ground on limiting cooperation between local law enforcement and federal immigration officers in their responses to a letter Bondi sent to more than 30 jurisdictions.

“This ends now,” Bondi wrote. Actually, it doesn’t, the Democrats replied by her Tuesday deadline — uniformly rejecting the Trump administration’s assertion that they’re interfering with federal immigration enforcement.

“That the federal government would insist that Minnesota should divert state resources to do the federal government’s job or help effectuate some kind of misguided political agenda is fundamentally inconsistent with our founding principles as a nation,” Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the former Democratic nominee for vice president, said in his letter to the attorney general. The response letters — culled from POLITICO’s outreach to the 35 cities, counties and states on the Department of Justice’s updated “U.S. Sanctuary Jurisdiction List” — ranged in tone from antagonistic to diplomatic in the face of Bondi’s threats of criminal prosecution.

Read more: https://www.politico.com/news/2025/08/20/blue-cities-states-rebuff-white-house-immigration-enforcement-00517041