Trump Signs Executive Orders To 'Build the Wall' And Crack Down On Sanctuary Cities

President Trump is cracking down on the more than 300 sanctuary cities that shield immigrants, signing an executive order Wednesday that would withhold federal funds to those local governments that offer sanctuary to illegal immigrants. He signed the executive order during a ceremony at the Department of Homeland Security.

The order against sanctuary cities was expected to be one part of a series of executive orders on immigration issues that will be unveiled over a couple of days.

Before Trump signed the sanctuary city order, he signed an order formally moving forward with his campaign promise to build a wall on the Mexican border.

"This is border security," Trump said. "We've been talking about this from the beginning. This is going to bring it over the top. We are going to restore the rule of law in the United States.

"A nation without borders is not a nation. Beginning today, the United States of America gets back control of its borders."

The promise to "build a wall" was the most common refrain at Trump's campaign rallies last year. He would ask, "What are we going to do?" and the crowds would respond, "Build a wall." He would then ask, "Who's going to pay for it?" and they would respond, "Mexico."

The order calls for "the immediate construction of a physical wall on the southern border" of the United States. It does not say how the wall will be paid for.

Administration officials have said that the work on the wall could begin and that Mexico would be forced to pay for it down the road, though a mechanism for making that happen has not been spelled out.

"We will be in a form reimbursed by Mexico, which I've always said," Trump told ABC News on Wednesday.

Trump is also expected to impose visa restrictions for people from the Middle East and suspend the program that admits refugees into the United States.

Sanctuary cities and counties are called that because they offer sanctuary to illegal immigrants, refusing to turn them over to federal officials for deportation. Most sanctuary cities and counties have also passed laws preventing employees from even turning over information to immigration officials.

While it is the cities — such as Portland, Seattle, New York, San Francisco and Chicago — that tend to get the most notice, it is often counties, which usually run the jails, that have real power to protect immigrants.

The sanctuary cities-related order reinstates an Immigration and Customs Enforcement program known as Secure Communities, under which ICE would target undocumented immigrants.

The order also directs the State Department to take whatever steps necessary to make countries take undocumented immigrants back — including withholding visas to people from that country.

It also directs that federal funds be withheld from cities and counties that don't cooperate with immigration officials.

The order does not specify which funds will be withheld, saying only federal funds will be withheld except those required by law for law enforcement purposes.

Sources say the most likely target of funding would be the various grants given to local governments through the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security.

The two departments administer billions in grants — many of which go to law enforcement agencies in the more than 300 cities and counties that have declared themselves sanctuary cities.

These range from Homeland Security's Urban Area Security Initiative, which helps cities prepare for acts of terrorism, to the Edward Byrne Grant Program, which was named for a New York City police officer killed in the line of duty and provides funding for a range of programs, including crime victim assistance, drug patrols and drug treatment.

Here in Northern California, the most visible result of sanctuary status is the July 1, 2015 murder of Pleasanton native Kate Steinle on San Francisco's Pier 14. She was shot to death by a Mexican national, Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez, who had been deported five times. Lopez-Sanchez has seven felony convictions and was on probation from Texas at the time of the shooting. The federal agency that deports undocumented suspects, ICE, placed a hold on Lopez-Sanchez while he was held at the San Francisco County Jail. However, as a sanctuary city and county, San Francisco disregarded the hold and released him on April 15, less than three months before Steinle's death.

The Steinle case garnered national attention and was frequently mentioned by candidate Trump as an example of the need for a crackdown on illegal immigration.

-Written by Colin Miner, Patch with additional reporting by Bea Karnes, Patch; Photo via The White House