US court declares Trump's executive order unconstitutional
San Francisco, Aug 2: A US court of appeal in San Francisco on Wednesday declared "unconstitutional" an executive order of US President Donald Trump to deny federal funding of sanctuary cities including San Francisco earlier this year.
The Ninth US Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco said in a 2-1 decision that Trump had acted unconstitutionally to withhold funding from the "sanctuary cities" that refused to cooperate with federal immigration officials, Xinhua reported.
"Absent congressional authorization, the administration may not redistribute or withhold properly appropriated funds in order to effectuate its own policy goals," Chief Judge Sidney Thomas wrote in a majority opinion.
The United States Constitution exclusively grants the power of the purse to Congress, not the president, he said in the ruling.
The ruling came in lawsuits filed by two California counties, San Francisco and Santa Clara, which had openly voiced their refusal to grant information or cooperation to federal immigrations agents in cracking down on operations against illegal immigrants in California state that declared itself "a sanctuary state."
US District Judge William Orrick issued an injunction in November to block Trump's executive order to cut off funding to sanctuary cities. Both San Francisco and Santa Clara receive more than 1 billion U.S. dollars a year in federal funds.
Trump's administration has filed a lawsuit against California for protecting immigrants in the country illegally.
California passed a statewide sanctuary policy that took effect in 2018, and cities such as San Francisco, Chicago and Philadelphia have adopted them.
Sanctuary cities have claimed that having local police cooperate with federal immigration forces would scare away people in reporting crime to law-enforcing agencies.
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If Muslim-majority Wayanad can elect non-Muslims, surely Rae Bareli can elect Muslims: Owaisi
New Delhi (PTI): If Muslim-majority seats like Wayanad can elect non-Muslims, surely Rae Bareli, Amethi and Etawah can elect Muslims, AIMIM MP Asaduddin Owaisi said on Wednesday, lamenting the small number of Muslim MPs in the Lok Sabha.
Reiterating B R Ambedkar's views, Owaisi said for India to be democracy in the substantial sense, political power must be held by the most marginalised and the weakest.
"He (Ambedkar) repeatedly said political power is the key to social progress. You have only four per cent Muslims here. The ruling party has no Muslim member," he said in a debate on election reforms in Lok Sabha.
He lamented that the small number of Muslims in Lok Sabha.
"Muslims are not there, they are not reflected in the secular parties for example if Muslim-majority seats like Wayanad can elect non-Muslims, surely Rae Bareli, Amethi and Etawah can elect Muslims," Owaisi said in an apparent swipe at the Congress and the Samajwadi Party.
Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and Rahul Gandhi are MPs from Wayanad and Rae Bareli respectively. While Amethi and Rae Bareli has been the bastion of the Congress and the Gandhi family, Etawah has been an SP bastion.
