Trump Administration Publishes List of Sanctuary Cities and Counties to Target

Sanctuary cities place limits on asking residents about their immigration status and on helping federal officials with immigration enforcement. That makes it harder for the administration to arrest people who are in the U.S. illegally and makes Trump’s push for mass deportations more difficult.

Trump in late April ordered the attorney general and the Department of Homeland Security to identify these cities and states within a month. 

Several of the administration’s executive orders have called for withholding funds from sanctuary cities, leading to litigation from cities and states. A federal judge in California in April barred the federal government from withholding funds from cities and counties in the state under the executive orders while the case continues.

That judge criticized the failure of the executive orders to define which jurisdictions were sanctuaries.

The DHS list contained counties and cities across New England, and on the West Coast in Washington, California and Oregon, along with jurisdictions in Hawaii and Alaska. Cities and counties in New Mexico, Tennessee, Colorado, Wisconsin, Illinois and Minnesota were also named, as well as Washington, D.C.

“We are exposing these sanctuary politicians who harbor criminal illegal aliens and defy federal law,” said DHS Secretary Kristi Noem. 

By Friday afternoon, cracks were emerging in the list, which had multiple spelling errors, with several cities nationwide saying they had been included erroneously. 

“The entire city of Las Vegas is surprised,” Mayor Shelley Berkley said in televised remarks. “We have never been a sanctuary city. We are not a sanctuary city. We’re not ever going to be a sanctuary city.” Nevada’s Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo  said in a statement that “Las Vegas is working to quickly resolve this incorrect categorization with the Department of Homeland Security.”

In Michigan, Oakland County Executive David Coulter and Sheriff Michael Bouchard released a joint statement “addressing the erroneous inclusion” on the list of sanctuary cities. 

“We are not a sanctuary jurisdiction. We are confident that the county’s policies and practices comply with federal law and we were incorrectly placed on this list,” the statement said.

Also among cities that made the list was Huntington Beach, Calif., where a MAGA-supporting council has passed a resolution explicitly declaring the city a “non-sanctuary city.” 

The list skewed toward northern and traditionally blue cities or counties. In Georgia, the cities of Atlanta and Athens were named. Some states, like New York, were earmarked as a self-identified sanctuary jurisdiction. Roughly 12 cities within the state, from Albany to East Hampton to New York City, were on the list. 

Appeared in the May 30, 2025, print edition as 'Targeted Sanctuary Jurisdictions Disclosed'.