This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

Local governments can call themselves sanctuaries and say they won't allow a federal program to deport illegal aliens within their boundaries.

But it's likely nothing more than talk.

Denver's mayor recently claimed not only his police but 50,000 residents would line up to prevent the incoming administration of President-elect Donald Trump from deporting illegal aliens found in the city.

He rashly said he'd go to jail over the issue, and Trump's new border czar, Tom Homan, said that's where the mayor would be sent if he persisted.

Now there's another precedent that affirms the incoming administration's authority to run such a program.

A report at the Center Square describes how a three-judge panel at the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals struck down an attempt in Seattle by local officials to rein in deportation programs.

There, officials had ordered companies not to service airplanes being used for deportation during Trump's first administration.

The result is a ruling that the federal government can deport foreign nationals inside the U.S. illegally even over the objection of local authorities.

The report cited the ruling from Judge Daniel Bress, with judges Michael Hawkins and Richard Clinton concurring.

It was a 2019 executive order from King County Executive Dow Constantine that told county officials to ban fixed base operators on a county airfield near Seattle from servicing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement charter flights used to deport illegal foreign nationals, the report said.

The Trump administration at that time sued, citing the Constitution's Supremacy Clause and other law.

The district judge ruled against Seattle, as has the appeals court now.

The ruling said the federal government had Article III standing to bring the action, and the injuries from the ban were traceable to the local officials' political agenda.

The local order, in fact, violated the intergovernmental immunity doctrine because it "improperly regulated the way in which the federal government transported noncitizen detainees by preventing ICE from using private FBO contractors at Boeing Field, and on its face discriminated against the United States by singling out the federal government and its contractors for unfavorable treatment," the report said the court found.