A widely anticipated list of “ sanctuary jurisdictions” no longer appears on the Department of Homeland Security’s website after receiving widespread criticism for including localities that have actively supported the Trump administration’s hard-line immigration policies.

The department last week published the list of the jurisdictions. It said each one would receive formal notification the government deemed them uncooperative with federal immigration enforcement and whether they’re believed to be in violation of any federal criminal statutes.

The list was published Thursday on the department’s website, but on Sunday there was a “Page Not Found” error message in its place.

The list was part of the Trump administration’s efforts to target communities, states and jurisdictions that it says aren’t doing enough to help its immigration enforcement agenda and the promises the president made to deport more than 11 million people living in the U.S. without legal authorization.

The list is being constantly reviewed and can be changed at any time and will be updated regularly, a DHS senior official said.

“Designation of a sanctuary jurisdiction is based on the evaluation of numerous factors, including self-identification as a Sanctuary Jurisdiction, noncompliance with Federal law enforcement in enforcing immigration laws, restrictions on information sharing, and legal protections for illegal aliens,” the official said in a statement.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures” that there had been anger from some officials about the list. However, she didn’t address why it was removed.

“Some of the cities have pushed back,” Noem said. “They think because they don’t have one law or another on the books that they don’t qualify, but they do qualify. They are giving sanctuary to criminals.”

The list, which was riddled with misspellings, received pushback from officials in communities spanning from urban to rural and blue to red who said the list doesn’t appear to make sense.

In California, the city of Huntington Beach made the list even though it had filed a lawsuit challenging the state’s immigration sanctuary law and passed a resolution this year declaring the community a “non-sanctuary city.”

Jim Davel, administrator for Shawano County, Wisconsin, said the inclusion of his community must have been a clerical error. Davel voted for President Donald Trump as did 67% of Shawano County.

Davel thinks the administration may have confused the county’s vote in 2021 to become a “Second Amendment Sanctuary County” that prohibits gun control measures with it being a safe haven for immigrants. He said the county has approved no immigration sanctuary policies.

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List of ‘sanctuary jurisdictions’ removed from US government website following criticism is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

President Donald Trump speaks during an executive order signing in the Oval Office on Feb. 11, 2025. Trump signed two immigration-related orders on Monday in an event closed to press photographers. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Monday evening signed executive orders targeting so-called sanctuary cities by threatening to revoke federal funding and providing legal services and national security assets to law enforcement.

The signings fell on the eve of Trump’s first 100 days of his second term, during which his administration has enacted an immigration crackdown that has led to clashes with the judiciary branch and cities that do not coordinate with federal immigration authorities, often referred to as “sanctuary cities.”

“Some State and local officials nevertheless continue to use their authority to violate, obstruct, and defy the enforcement of Federal immigration laws,” according to the executive order regarding sanctuary cities. “This is a lawless insurrection against the supremacy of Federal law and the Federal Government’s obligation to defend the territorial sovereignty of the United States.”

The order directs the Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security to publicly list local jurisdictions that limit cooperation with immigration officials, but do not stop immigration enforcement.

Jurisdictions on the list will then be reviewed by the Office of Management and Budget to “identify appropriate Federal funds to sanctuary jurisdictions, including grants and contracts, for suspension or termination, as appropriate.”

This is not the first time the Trump administration has targeted jurisdictions that don’t fully cooperate with federal immigration enforcement. 

The Justice Department recently filed a lawsuit against the city of Rochester, New York, over its immigration policies after local law enforcement did not assist federal immigration officials in an arrest. The Trump administration argued those ordinances in Rochester were impeding federal immigration enforcement.

The president also signed an executive order in January that threatened to withhold federal funding from states and local governments that refused to aid in federal immigration enforcement activities. A federal judge in San Francisco last week blocked the Trump administration from withholding federal funds from 16 so-called sanctuary cities.

Republicans have also scrutinized those policies, including during a six-hour hearing of the U.S. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that included grilling mayors from Boston, Chicago and Denver, on their cities’ immigration policies. 

The executive order also aims to curb any federal benefits that may extend to people without permanent legal status.

That executive order directed DOJ and DHS to “take appropriate action to stop the enforcement of State and local laws” that allow for students without proper legal authorization to receive in-state tuition, which would include those with Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA.

Last week, administration officials cheered the FBI arrest of a Wisconsin judge who they say helped an immigrant in the country without legal authorization escape detention by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The arrest followed the third appearance by ICE officers seeking to make arrests at the Milwaukee County Courthouse, a practice some experts believe hinders local law enforcement.

Law enforcement resources

A second executive order Trump signed Monday provides legal resources for law enforcement officials “who unjustly incur expenses and liabilities for actions taken during the performance of their official duties to enforce the law.”

The order also directs coordination among the departments of Justice, Defense and Homeland Security to “increase the provision of excess military and national security assets in local jurisdictions to assist State and local law enforcement.” 

Earlier Monday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the executive order relating to law enforcement will “strengthen and unleash America’s law enforcement to pursue criminals and protect innocent citizens.”

White House Border Czar Tom Homan talks with reporters on the driveway outside the White House West Wing on March 17, 2025. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — White House border czar Tom Homan on Monday blamed the parents of U.S. citizen children the Trump administration sent to Honduras over the weekend.

At a Monday morning press conference, Homan defended the government’s actions to remove three young children from two different families alongside their mothers who were in the country without legal authorization but participated in a program that allows otherwise law-abiding migrants to stay in their communities.

“If you enter this country illegally, it’s a crime,” Homan said. “Knowing you’re in this country illegally, you put yourself in that position. You put your family in that position.”

The children, all under the age of 10, were placed on deportation flights to Honduras on Friday after their mothers checked in with a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in New Orleans as part of the Intensive Supervision Appearance Program, which allows immigrants to stay in their communities while undergoing immigration court proceedings.

An attorney for one of the children, Gracie Willis at the National Immigration Project, said the 4-year-old U.S. citizen with Stage 4 cancer was deported without access to his medication.

Homan has argued the mothers requested to be deported with their children, but attorneys for the families argue they were “denied access to legal counsel, and swiftly deported without due process.”

Due process concerns

U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty, whom Trump appointed to a seat on the Louisiana federal bench in 2018, expressed concern that a 2-year-old U.S. citizen had been deported, despite her father’s wishes she remain in the U.S., according to court filings.

Doughty scheduled a May 16 hearing because of his “strong suspicion that the government just deported a U.S. citizen with no meaningful process.”

“The government contends that this is all okay because the mother wishes that the child be deported with her,” Doughty wrote in his order. “But the court doesn’t know that.”

Willis, from the National Immigration Project, raised concerns about a lack of due process and how the deportations have separated families.

“What we saw from ICE over the last several days is horrifying and baffling,” she said in a statement. “These mothers had no opportunity to speak with their co-parents to make the kinds of choices that parents are entitled to make for their children, the kinds of decisions that millions of parents make every day: ‘what is best for our child?’”

Homan has argued the children were deported at the request of the mothers and that the Trump administration was “keeping families together.”

“What we did is remove children with their mothers who requested their children depart with them,” he said. “When a parent says, ‘I want my 2-year-old baby to go with me,’ we made that happen. They weren’t deported. We don’t deport U.S. citizens. The parents made that decision, not the United States government.”

Wisconsin judge

Monday’s remarks from Homan come the day before President Donald Trump will mark the 100th day of his second term. His early days in office have centered on carrying out his campaign promise of mass deportations of millions of people in the U.S. without permanent legal status.

Trump will sign two executive orders on immigration late Monday: one relating to border security and another to require the Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security to publicly list so-called sanctuary cities that do not coordinate with federal immigration law enforcement.

Homan also stood by the Trump administration’s decision to arrest a federal judge in Wisconsin on the grounds she obstructed immigration officials from detaining a man attending his court hearing. It marked an escalation between the Trump administration and the judiciary branch, raising concerns from Democrats.

The arrest of Judge Hannah Dugan was highly publicized after she was handcuffed in public and FBI Director Kash Patel bragged about the arrest on social media.

Attorney General Pam Bondi said on Fox News that the Trump administration was going to continue to go after judges who “think they’re above the law.”

“When you cross that line to impediment or knowingly harboring, concealing an illegal alien from ICE, you will be prosecuted, judge or not,” Homan said. 

Wisconsin Watch partners with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. Read our methodology to learn how we check claims.

No.

There’s no readily available evidence Susan Crawford has supported stopping deportations of illegal immigrants or protecting sanctuary cities, as a Republican attack ad claims.

Sanctuary communities limit how much they help authorities with deportations.

Crawford, a liberal, faces conservative Brad Schimel in the nonpartisan April 1 Wisconsin Supreme Court election.

The attack on Crawford was made by the Republican State Leadership Committee, a national group that works to elect Republicans to state offices.

The group provided Wisconsin Watch no evidence to back its claim. A spokesperson cited Democratic support for Crawford and Democratic opposition to cooperating with deportations, but nothing Crawford said on the topics. Searches of past Crawford statements found nothing.

The ad also claims Crawford would “let criminals roam free,” referring to a man convicted of touching girls’ private parts in a club swimming pool. Crawford sentenced the man in 2020 to four years in prison; a prosecutor had requested 10 years.

This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.

Sources

• Republican State Leadership Committee: "Crazy" ad
• Ballotpedia: Wisconsin Supreme Court elections, 2025
• Wisconsin Examiner: Wisconsin Democrats seek to prohibit state and local cooperation with ICE and deportation efforts
• Reuters: Trump deporting people at a slower rate than Biden's last year in office
• Wisconsin Watch: Did Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate Susan Crawford sentence a child sex offender to four years after a prosecutor requested 10?
• Republican State Leadership Committee: Email, Feb. 25, 2025
• Wisconsin Republican Party: Crawford etched in stone, she’s a pro-illegal immigration and anti-ICE Democrat

Has Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate Susan Crawford supported stopping deportations and protecting sanctuary cities? is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.