San Francisco’s status as a sanctuary city places it at the target for an attack from an emboldened Donald Trump administration.

This time, however, lawyers and community advocates have understood the playbook and have already begun to step up.

“This is the second time … and he apparently has more ideas,” said Bill Hing, founding director of the University of San Francisco Immigration and Deportation Defense Clinic. “So we have to prepare for the worst.”

Changes to the immigration system

In the years to come, Hing predicts that immigration advocates will face both ideological and procedural challenges.

“You would think the law is the law,” Hing said. “But in reality, the attorney general has the ability to impose a certain interpretation of the law.”

People fleeing domestic violence currently make up the majority of cases successfully treated by Hing’s clinic. These lawsuits will soon become more difficult to win. Hing expects the Trump-appointed federal attorney general to have a narrower definition of what warrants political asylum, excluding both domestic violence and gang violence.

The pace at which immigration cases are planned and processed can also be accelerated through “rocket cases”. Federal mandates could force courts to make faster decisions, giving newcomers fewer opportunities to prepare their defense, Hing said.

Additionally, it is unlikely that newly appointed conservative judges will exercise their “prosecutorial discretion” to allow people without criminal histories to remain in the country regardless of their formal asylum status, Hing continued.

On the ground, Hing doesn’t anticipate having Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents patrolling the streets checking documents. But the president has the authority to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which allows an estimated 500,000 undocumented adults who entered the country as children to remain in the country.