White House issues blistering response to judge's block of Trump's sanctuary city order

The White House released a blistering statement Tuesday in response to a federal judge's decision to temporarily block President Trump's executive order that threatens to cut off government funding for sanctuary cities. "Today, the rule of law suffered another blow, as an unelected judge unilaterally rewrote immigration policy for our nation," it began.

U.S. District Judge William Orrick in San Francisco ruled that the plaintiffs, San Francisco and Santa Clara County, would likely be able to prove Trump's order unconstitutional. Orrick wrote in the preliminary injunction that the president "has no authority to attach new conditions to federal immigration spending."

The White House doesn't see it that way, though. Arguing the illegality of cities refusing to send relevant information to the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the statement claimed "these cities are engaged in the dangerous and unlawful nullification of federal law in an attempt to erase our borders."

Aware of his looming 100-day symbolic deadline, President Trump is now facing his second bruising defeat by a federal judge as his immigration ban on several majority-Muslim countries was also repeatedly blocked for being unconstitutional. The president responded by lashing out at the order on Twitter, going as far as to criticize the U.S. legal system as "messy." "First the Ninth Circuit rules against the ban [and] now it hits again on sanctuary cities — both ridiculous rulings. See you in the Supreme Court!" he said. Orrick does not sit on the 9th circuit.

The White House added: "San Francisco, and cities like it, are putting the well-being of criminal aliens before the safety of our citizens, and those city officials who authored these policies have the blood of dead Americans on their hands. This San Francisco judge's erroneous ruling is a gift to the criminal gang and cartel element in our country, empowering the worst kind of human trafficking and sex trafficking, and putting thousands of innocent lives at risk." Read the full statement at BuzzFeed News.