A federal judge dismissed the Trump administration‘s lawsuit aimed at striking down a New York law that prevents federal immigration officials from arresting illegal immigrants in and around state courthouses.
Judge Mae D’Agostino of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York rejected the Justice Department’s claims that the Protect Our Courts Act violates the supremacy clause by unlawfully obstructing federal law enforcement operations.
“New York is not attempting to regulate federal agents, and it is not prohibiting the federal government from enforcing immigration law,” said D’Agostino, an appointee of former President Barack Obama. “Rather, it is simply defining, as a proprietor, what activities are not permissible in state-owned facilities. Such conduct does not run afoul of the intergovernmental immunity doctrine.”
D’Agostino also found that the 10th Amendment allows states to opt out of assisting with federal immigration enforcement and that state officials have intergovernmental immunity from claims made by the Trump administration.
“To hold to the contrary would improperly elevate the concerns of the federal sovereign over that of a State and deprive New York of its essential ability to protect its sovereign interests in the face of undue federal interference,” D’Agostino said.
The Trump administration filed the lawsuit in June, alleging that the 2020 state law has hampered the ability of federal immigration officials to arrest illegal immigrants in state and local courts. Federal officials have increasingly used federal courthouses, and some local courthouses, as places to arrest illegal immigrants, arguing it is safer for officers because subjects have to go through security to enter a courthouse and are therefore known to be unarmed.
The DOJ can appeal Monday’s district court ruling to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit.
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While the Trump administration has sought to overturn the New York law through a lawsuit, other states and jurisdictions have issued similar orders blocking federal immigration officials from making arrests at their courthouses.
The local court system in Cook County, Illinois, which includes Chicago, blocked federal immigration arrests in the vicinity of its courthouse in an order last month.
