Federal judge rejects Trump challenge to NYC sanctuary laws

A federal judge this week tossed out a lawsuit from the Trump administration challenging New York City’s laws that restrict local law enforcement from cooperating with federal immigration authorities. On Thursday, Judge Ramón E. Reyes Jr., a U.S. District Court judge in Brooklyn, rejected a lawsuit brought by the White House against New York City’s sanctuary laws. The ruling held that the U.S. government can’t force police and other city agencies to aid in enforcing civil immigration laws. The ruling is the latest blow to the administration’s efforts to compel cities and states to cooperate with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency’s aggressive mass deportation campaign.

As the New York Times reports, the administration’s lawsuit argued that the city’s refusal to honor detainer requests from ICE had led to agents being sent into communities, putting its officers at risk, and “resulted in countless criminals being released into the city who should have been held for immigration removal from the United States.”

Judge Reyes, a Biden appointee, ruled that the federal government lacked standing and that cites and states were protected by the Constitution from being made to spend their resources enforcing federal immigration laws. The ruling joins similar decisions by judges from around the country in Democrat-led areas like Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Colorado, New Jersey, and Minnesota.

New York City’s sanctuary laws provide a degree of protection to undocumented immigrants if federal agents seek to detain or deport them, mainly by limiting cooperation between city agencies, like law enforcement, and federal immigration agencies such as ICE. There are currently over 1,000 sanctuary jurisdictions throughout the country.

Sanctuary policies act as a barrier to communication between immigration agents and city employees who work with undocumented immigrants. The first sanctuary laws were created to encourage immigrants to seek out city services like medical treatment and school enrollment and to report crimes without fear of detention.

In a statement to the Times, Mayor Zohran Mamdani said: “This is a victory for New Yorkers and a rebuke to ICE’s deportation agenda. The federal government came to court seeking to force New York City to turn its public servants into deportation agents and divert our resources toward carrying out ICE’s cruel agenda.”

Mamdani said the ruling made it clear that the federal government “cannot commandeer our city workers to do its bidding.”

Thursday’s ruling follows an incident in which a federal ICE agent shot a man in a car with his five-year-old son in the Marble Hill neighborhood in Manhattan. As 6sqft previously reported, following the incident, Department of Homeland Security head Markwayne Mullin attacked New York’s sanctuary city policies, saying, “When you have sanctuary cities and sanctuary politicians, you endanger the safety of the public.”

Following the shooting, Mayor Mamdani called for ICE to end its enforcement efforts in New York City, saying in a statement, “I will not stand by while ICE agents terrorize our communities.”

Mamdani announced in a statement on Friday that, along with elected officials across the state, he has asked every parking garage and lot owner in New York City not to allow ICE to use their property as a staging area for anti-immigrant operations.

A letter sent Friday also calls on property owners to tell the agency directly that it is not authorized to use their facilities. ICE agents had reportedly been using a private parking lot near the Marble Hill incident for staging purposes and have been operating out of bank parking lots in Manhattan and Queens.

“I am asking every garage and lot owner in this city to stop giving them that option. Do not rent your property to ICE. Do not lend it to them. Tell them they are not welcome. More than 100 elected officials from across New York are standing with me to make that request,” Mamdani said in a statement.

“We know this kind of action can already make a difference: After neighbors spoke up, a garage on Morton Street removed ICE vehicles from its property. Every owner has the power to do the same. Our neighbors should not live in fear that the parking lot down the block could become a staging ground for an operation that puts their communities at risk.”

RELATED:

• After Marble Hill ICE shooting, DHS head takes aim at Mamdani and New York’s sanctuary policies
• NYC sues Trump over new rule that may deny green cards to immigrants using public assistance
• New York provides $7.25M for legal services for immigrant children facing removal proceedings
• What makes New York a sanctuary city—and is its status under threat?