By Óscar Contreras | Denver7
The joint lawsuit alleges the Trump administration has asserted “an unprecedented and unlawful interpretation of the federal government’s authority to commandeer local government resources”
DENVER — The City and County of Denver on Tuesday announced it had filed suit against the Trump administration for what it called “its unlawful and unconstitutional threats” to withhold federal funding over Denver’s policies limiting cooperation with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The joint lawsuit, filed last week in conjunction with nearly 50 other jurisdictions from across the country in U.S. District Court in northern California, alleges the Trump administration has asserted “an unprecedented and unlawful interpretation of the federal government’s authority to commandeer local government resources.”
The lawsuit contends that executive orders issued by President Donald Trump earlier this year to ramp mass deportations nationwide, including withholding federal funds from so-called “sanctuary cities” that do not comply with his directives, “fly in the face of foundational constitutional principles … [and] violate plain statutory language and numerous court orders.”
The directives by the Trump administration, the lawsuit argues, “force local governments that have made deliberate decisions about how to make their communities safer and where to spend their own resources into an impossible choice—to relinquish their autonomy and independence and abandon their valid laws and policies, or face the sudden and devastating loss of federal funding and civil and criminal enforcement actions.”
Denver7 has obtained a copy of the lawsuit, which you can read in the embed below.
![FD863768-0ACF-495E-9D21-2EF784DFFA6B[1]](https://rockymountainvoice.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/FD863768-0ACF-495E-9D21-2EF784DFFA6B1-300x300.png)