A federal judge in Illinois dismissed a lawsuit on Friday in which the Justice Department argued that state and local officials were violating the Constitution by enforcing so-called sanctuary measures that limit cooperation with immigration agents.
The lawsuit, filed in the early days of Mr. Trump’s term, was one of several brought by the Justice Department challenging immigration policies in Democratic-led jurisdictions. On Thursday, the Trump administration filed a similar lawsuit against Mayor Eric Adams of New York City.
The Illinois lawsuit named as defendants the governor, Chicago’s mayor and police superintendent, and Cook County’s board president and sheriff.
In dismissing the case, Judge Lindsay C. Jenkins wrote that the Justice Department had failed to show that the state and local governments were violating federal law.
“Because the Tenth Amendment protects defendants’ sanctuary policies, those policies cannot be found to discriminate against or regulate the federal government,” said Judge Jenkins, who was appointed to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois by former President Joseph R. Biden Jr.
Justice Department officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the ruling. State and county officials also did not immediately respond to requests for comment. City officials applauded the ruling.
“This ruling affirms what we have long known: that Chicago’s Welcoming City Ordinance is lawful and supports public safety,” Cassio Mendoza, a spokesperson for Mr. Johnson, said in a statement. “The city cannot be compelled to cooperate with the Trump administration’s reckless and inhumane immigration agenda.”
In the lawsuit, lawyers for the Trump administration argued that state and local sanctuary measures in Illinois “interfere with and discriminate against the federal government’s enforcement of federal immigration law in violation of the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution.”
Gov. JB Pritzker of Illinois, Mayor Brandon Johnson of Chicago and Toni Preckwinkle, the board president of Cook County, which includes Chicago, have defended their immigration policies. The policies, they have argued, enhance public safety by building trust with immigrants, who can interact with local officials without fear that it might lead to deportation. Mr. Pritzker, Mr. Johnson and Ms. Preckwinkle are Democrats.
“The city’s decision to prioritize fighting local crime and preserve trust with residents does not amount to obstruction or interference with federal objectives,” lawyers for Mr. Johnson and the Chicago police superintendent, Larry Snelling, said in a motion seeking the lawsuit’s dismissal.
The lawsuit is part of a broader push by the new president and his allies against Democratic-led places that have labeled themselves as sanctuaries for undocumented immigrants. Republicans say sanctuary policies make the country more dangerous and usurp federal authority. The Justice Department has said that it could prosecute state and city officials who refuse to help the administration carry out its immigration agenda.
Mr. Johnson was among four big-city mayors who testified about those policies in Congress in March, where he insisted that Chicago’s ordinance did not violate federal law despite hours of questioning from skeptical Republicans.
“You’re putting the interests of illegal immigrants above the interest of taxpayers in Chicago,” Representative Darin LaHood, an Illinois Republican whose district does not include Chicago, said to Mr. Johnson during that hearing.
The state, city and county policies being challenged differ in their details, but all of them broadly limit cooperation with federal immigration authorities unless a criminal warrant is presented. The measures restrict what information state and local officials can share with their federal counterparts, and do not allow for an inmate to be held solely on an immigration “detainer” or civil warrant.
Mitch Smith is a Chicago-based national correspondent for The Times, covering the Midwest and Great Plains.
The post Federal Judge Dismisses Trump Administration’s Challenge of Illinois Sanctuary Measures appeared first on New York Times.
