Seattle Mayor Ed Murray is ready to sue President Donald Trump if he keeps refusing to answer Murray's questions about his immigration policies, Politico reported Tuesday.
The mayor is slated to use his State of the City speech Tuesday morning to announce plans to ask the Trump administration to respond to questions about his executive orders, his plans for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), and sanctuary cities.
If the president does not answer within 20 days, Murray will sue.
[block:block=30]
"We believe the rule of law is on our side, and we will take legal action if the federal government does not answer our requests in a timely manner," the mayor is expected to say, according to prepared text of the speech provided to Politico.
Murray's announcement comes just after a Seattle judge ruled against the president over his memo blocking travelers from seven majority-Muslim countries from entering the U.S., and banning Syrian refugees indefinitely. Judge James Robart's ruling temporarily halted the ban nationwide.
Seattle has also declared itself a sanctuary city, and became the site of a high-profile arrest of an undocumented immigrant who was brought to the U.S. as a young child and had obtained permission to live and work legally in the country under the DACA program. Murray's aides were told by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials that the agency was unable to set up a meeting to provide the city with more information on 23-year-old Daniel Ramirez Medina's detainment, as thousands of people demanded his freedom.
Trump has threatened to pull federal funding for sanctuary cities—and his hard-line stance has prompted mayors around the country to publicly declare their commitment to sheltering undocumented immigrants.
Murray says he wants to know what the Trump administration plans to do—"and whether he should be expecting retaliation for fighting it," Politico writes.
"The city must be able to provide accurate information to immigrants and refugees and their families living in Seattle," Murray will say. "We will seek to determine the administration's definition of 'sanctuary cities' and the enforcement actions the federal government may take against us. We will also seek detailed information about this administration's changes to travel policy, as well as changes to immigration status, including the DACA program."
