The Shut Down Sanctuary Policies Act would override local limits on cooperation with ICE and redirect federal law enforcement money from jurisdictions that keep them. Supporters call it a public-safety measure; Democrats on the Judiciary Committee say it violates the Tenth Amendment.
A bill written by Representative Tom McClintock that would override San Francisco’s 37-year-old sanctuary ordinance, and cut the city off from several federal law enforcement grants if it kept the policy, has been waiting for a House floor vote since March.
The measure, H.R. 7640, the Shut Down Sanctuary Policies Act of 2026, cleared the House Judiciary Committee on a 22-to-11 vote on March 5 and was placed on the House calendar a week later, according to Congress.gov, which lists no action since. With Congress expected to return after Tuesday’s election for a lame-duck session, the bill could still reach the floor before the 119th Congress ends in January.
Mr. McClintock, a Republican who represents California’s Fifth District in the Sierra Nevada foothills and the Central Valley, says the bill is about letting willing local officials work with federal immigration authorities.
“All of the local sheriffs in my district want desperately to cooperate with ICE to enforce our immigration laws, but the State of California forbids them from doing so,” Mr. McClintock said in a March 5 statement. “My bill will allow them to work directly with the federal government to keep their counties safe and to receive the funds that would otherwise go to ‘sanctuary’ jurisdictions.”
In an Oct. 28 interview with AgNet West, Mr. McClintock again described the bill as a way for sheriffs to set up cooperative agreements with federal immigration authorities and for families who lose loved ones to people released from local custody to seek redress in court.
The case for the bill
The Judiciary Committee’s majority report, House Report 119-541, argues that local limits on cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement put the public at risk by releasing people with criminal charges or convictions who could otherwise be handed to federal officers for deportation. It says sanctuary jurisdictions nationwide “have declined at least 41,085 detainers” since October 2022, citing ICE data, and that California’s refusal to honor detainers resulted in the release of 4,561 people from January 2025 through early February 2026, citing an ICE news release.
The report singles out San Francisco, quoting the city’s policy and recounting the 2015 death of Kate Steinle, who was shot on Pier 14 by a man San Francisco officials had released “from custody instead of turning him over to immigration authorities,” in the report’s words. A state jury acquitted him in her death; he later pleaded guilty to federal firearms charges.
Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, Republican of Ohio, called the bill “commonsense legislation that will rein in sanctuary policies across the country and help keep Americans safe,” according to Mr. McClintock’s statement.
The bill is consistent with the Trump administration’s own priorities. Since January 2025, the administration has sought to withhold federal money from sanctuary jurisdictions by executive action, arguing that local refusals to honor detainers undermine federal law. Mr. McClintock’s bill would have Congress write a version of that funding condition into law.
Jessica M. Vaughan, director of policy studies at the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington group that favors lower immigration and stricter enforcement, said in an emailed response to questions that the bill was needed.
“Mr. McClintock’s bill is essential to address the problem of local sanctuary policies, which endanger the public and impede the legitimate enforcement of immigration laws against criminals,” Ms. Vaughan wrote. She added that “San Francisco has one of the worst sanctuary policies in the country” and that “Congressional action is needed because sanctuary jurisdictions will not do the right thing on their own; they only respond to penalties.”
What the bill would do
The bill text amends a 1996 federal law, 8 U.S.C. 1373, to bar any state or local government from restricting its officers from cooperating with federal immigration authorities or asking about a person’s immigration status, and declares that conflicting state and local laws are preempted.
Jurisdictions that the Secretary of Homeland Security determines are out of compliance, including those that do not honor detainers, would be ineligible for the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program, Community Oriented Policing Services grants, Byrne Justice Assistance Grants and other Justice Department and Homeland Security grants tied to law enforcement or immigration. The cutoff would last at least a year, or until the jurisdiction is certified as compliant, and the money would be redistributed to compliant jurisdictions. The secretary’s annual determination would be made “in the Secretary’s sole and unreviewable discretion.”
The bill also defines when the Department of Homeland Security may issue a detainer, shields jurisdictions and officers that comply with ICE requests from lawsuits, substituting the United States as the defendant, and creates a new right to sue. Victims of murder, rape or any other felony, or their families if the victim died, could sue a state or local government that released the offender after declining an ICE detainer.
How it would land in San Francisco
San Francisco’s Sanctuary Ordinance, adopted in 1989 and found in Chapters 12H and 12I of the city’s Administrative Code, generally bars city employees from using city resources to help ICE enforce civil immigration law. A 2013 addition, the “Due Process for All” ordinance, bars the city from holding people on civil immigration detainers once they are eligible for release and limits when officers may tell ICE about a release date. The city says the rules help keep “all residents, regardless of immigration status,” comfortable calling the police and using public health services.
The state’s 2017 California Values Act imposes similar limits statewide, so the bill would reach Sacramento’s policies as well as the city’s.
San Francisco has fought earlier efforts to tie federal money to its policies. In April 2025, Judge William H. Orrick of the Federal District Court in San Francisco issued a preliminary injunction barring the administration from withholding or conditioning funds to San Francisco and other jurisdictions over their sanctuary policies; the administration appealed to the Ninth Circuit. That case turned in part on whether the executive branch could impose conditions Congress had not authorized. A statute passed by Congress would present a different question.
The objections
Democrats on the Judiciary Committee offered five amendments, including one from Representative Sydney Kamlager-Dove of Los Angeles, and all failed. In dissenting views filed with the report, Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the committee’s ranking Democrat, called the bill “a full-blown assault on the Tenth Amendment.”
Mr. Raskin cited Printz v. United States, the 1997 Supreme Court decision holding that the federal government may not compel state and local officers to carry out federal programs. He described the funding cutoff as “a Godfather offer” and an unconstitutional condition, citing the court’s 2012 health care ruling, National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius.
The majority report answers that the bill “does not command law enforcement officers to do anything,” and that “cooperation with federal immigration authorities would remain voluntary.” Jurisdictions that decline would lose only certain grants, it says.
The committee asked the Congressional Budget Office for a cost estimate, but the report says the estimate had not been received when it was filed.
What comes next
To become law, the bill would need to pass the House and then clear the Senate, where most legislation needs 60 votes to advance. Congress.gov lists no related Senate bill. Its five cosponsors, Representatives Ben Cline of Virginia, Troy Nehls of Texas, Harriet Hageman of Wyoming, Russell Fry of South Carolina and Tom Tiffany of Wisconsin, are all Republicans.
Mr. McClintock’s campaign, the House Judiciary Committee majority staff, the San Francisco City Attorney’s Office and the Immigrant Legal Resource Center did not respond to requests for comment.
Ingrid Lindqvist covers Northern California’s members of Congress on Capitol Hill, from committee rooms and floor votes to the bills and spending that reach the region, for The Delegation. More from Ingrid Lindqvist
