President Donald Trump signed an govt order on April 28, 2025, that calls for the U.S. legal professional normal, in coordination with the secretary of Homeland Safety, publish a listing of cities and states that impede the enforcement of federal immigration legal guidelines, with the aim of defending Individuals from “criminal aliens.”
Philadelphia will possible find yourself on the checklist.
Philadelphia is what’s often known as a sanctuary metropolis. Whereas the time period has no fastened definition, it normally refers to a metropolis that has declared its refusal to cooperate – and even works at odds – with federal immigration enforcement.
As a legislation professor at Temple College in Philadelphia, the place I supervise college students who characterize low-wage immigrant staff, I do know that sanctuary insurance policies can gradual the federal immigration enforcement system.
However the backside line is that federal immigration officers – normally U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement – can nonetheless perform deportations in a sanctuary metropolis.
Additional, there isn’t any query that localities corresponding to Philadelphia can legally resolve to not cooperate with federal immigration enforcement. Cities, like states, have constitutional protections in opposition to being pressured to manage or implement federal applications. The Trump administration can’t drive any state or native official to help in implementing federal immigration legislation.
What stays to be seen is what, if any, motion the administration will take in opposition to these jurisdictions that find yourself on their checklist of sanctuary cities.
Philly’s sanctuary insurance policies
My work has concerned researching sanctuary insurance policies in addition to how usually ICE depends on native legislation enforcement to assist determine and switch over immigrants.
Philadelphia’s varied sanctuary insurance policies break that connection and go away ICE to its personal units. Additionally they sign to immigrants that the town isn’t within the enterprise of federal immigration enforcement. Analysis reveals this helps immigrants really feel safer to entry public advantages and companies corresponding to getting care at a neighborhood well being middle or calling the police with out worry of immigration penalties.
Protestors take part in an ‘Abolish ICE’ march by way of downtown Philadelphia in 2018.
Bastiaan Slabbers/NurPhoto through Getty Pictures
Philadelphia’s most notable sanctuary coverage, an govt order signed by then-Mayor Jim Kenney in January 2016, is its refusal to have its jails honor ICE detainers or requests for launch dates. An ICE detainer is a voluntary request asking native officers to carry an immigrant, who’s in any other case going to be launched, for a further 48 hours so ICE can choose them up.
Failing to honor ICE detainers disrupts the deportation pipeline and makes ICE’s job tougher.
One other key Philadelphia sanctuary coverage dates again to 2009 and was signed by then-Mayor Michael Nutter. It makes clear that metropolis officers don’t police immigration. Not solely are all metropolis staff – together with police, firefighters and behavioral well being staff – prohibited from asking about immigration standing in most conditions, however police are particularly directed to not cease, arrest or detain an individual “solely because of perceived immigration status.”
But there isn’t any approach to implement these sanctuary insurance policies. Below these legal guidelines, metropolis officers who violate them don’t face penalties. Compliance depends on a dedication from officers who consider that following these insurance policies is the suitable factor to do.
Philadelphia has additionally acted in different methods to interrupt the hyperlink between the town and immigration enforcement.
Since 2017, Philadelphia jails have had a protocol that daunts ICE from interviewing immigrants held in jail. Previous to offering ICE with entry to such people, the jails should first ship a consent type to an immigrant to tell them of their proper to say no an ICE interview.
In 2018, Philadelphia ended ICE’s entry to the town’s preliminary arraignment reporting system utilized by the Philadelphia Police Division and district legal professional’s workplace. The town mentioned it terminated its database-sharing contract with ICE given the “unacceptable” approach the company used the system, which “could result in immigration enforcement action against Philadelphians who haven’t been arrested, accused of, or convicted of any crime.”
Whereas these insurance policies can’t shield Philadelphia residents who’ve been arrested by ICE, the dearth of assist of native officers will make it tougher for the administration to ship on its promise to deport a document variety of immigrants.
ICE raided a automobile wash and arrested seven individuals in Philadelphia on Jan. 28, 2025.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement through Getty Pictures
Sanctuary campuses and church buildings
Other than the town itself, different private and non-private establishments inside Philadelphia have created sanctuary areas.
In June 2021, the College Board of Philadelphia adopted a sanctuary decision as a part of an effort to create welcoming colleges for immigrant kids. In January 2025, the Philadelphia College District reaffirmed its dedication.
Below the primary Trump presidency, non secular establishments, such because the Germantown Mennonite Church in Northwest Philly and the Tabernacle United Church in West Philly, supplied sanctuary inside their church buildings to immigrants who had acquired ultimate orders of deportation from ICE.
The College of Pennsylvania declared itself a sanctuary campus in 2016 however is at present shying away from that label whereas college, employees and college students demand that the college make clear its insurance policies on immigration enforcement.
Since 2011, ICE has had a “sensitive locations” memo that disfavors however doesn’t totally prohibit immigration enforcement in locations of worship, in addition to hospitals and colleges. The Biden administration strengthened the “sensitive locations” memo in 2021. Trump rescinded the memo throughout his first month in workplace.
Activists need Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker to decide to defending Philadelphia’s sanctuary insurance policies.
AP Picture/Matt Rourke
Retaliation in opposition to sanctuary cities
From the point of view of the Trump administration, state and native officers who defy the enforcement of immigration legislation are engaged in “a lawless insurrection” that creates public security and nationwide safety dangers.
Regardless of the administration’s robust rhetoric in regards to the “criminal alien,” 46% of individuals at present held in immigration detention haven’t any prison document, in accordance with the Transactional Information Entry Clearinghouse at Syracuse College. Many others have minor offenses, together with site visitors violations.
The manager order vows to terminate federal grants and pursue all enforcement measures to carry such jurisdictions “into compliance with the laws of the United States.”
Such terminations might not be authorized.
On April 24, 2025, a federal choose enjoined language in an earlier govt order directing the federal government to take motion in opposition to sanctuary cities to make sure that they don’t obtain entry to federal funds.
Previous situations to drag federal funding from Philadelphia due to its sanctuary metropolis standing have additionally failed. The primary Trump administration was unsuccessful at terminating a US$1 million federal grant to Philadelphia after the town sued and gained in federal courtroom in 2017.
The manager order additionally makes legally questionable claims that state and native officers who comply with their sanctuary insurance policies are participating in prison exercise, such because the obstruction of justice, illegal harboring or actions that violate federal RICO legislation. Regardless, the administration should select to pursue high-profile prosecutions of state and native officers.
The federal authorities’s efforts to punish sanctuary cities will undoubtedly be mired in authorized challenges throughout the nation. But Philadelphia officers should nonetheless resolve on this second whether or not to face robust with the town’s present sanctuary insurance policies. Metropolis Council member Rue Landau has been outspoken about sustaining Philadelphia’s sanctuary standing to make sure that public sources won’t ever be used to help federal deportation efforts. However Mayor Cherelle Parker has not dedicated to strengthening and even guaranteeing the town’s sanctuary protections.
In response to The Philadelphia Inquirer, the identical day Trump signed the manager order, Parker reiterated that Philadelphia nonetheless operates beneath its 2016 sanctuary coverage. Nevertheless, she didn’t use the time period “sanctuary city,” the Inquirer famous, and she or he “said she would not comment in more detail until Trump makes concrete moves that affect Philadelphia.”
That is an up to date model of a narrative initially printed on December 18, 2024.
