A federal judge threw out a Justice Department lawsuit against a Michigan county after one of its lawyers admitted no case supported his argument.
In a Friday decision, U.S. District Judge F. Kay Behm dismissed all six counts of the DOJ’s suit against Washtenaw County, which had ended its cooperation with federal immigration authorities and restricted Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s access to county property and jail cells. Behm cast the case as the latest in a string of attempts to force local governments to do Washington’s bidding under President Donald Trump.
“This is one of a series of lawsuits in which the President of the United States has sought to compel states and localities to do the work and bear the cost of enforcing his preferred immigration agenda,” Behm wrote.
The judge was blunt about how she viewed the decision to sue after the county redirected its resources toward local policing.
“Apparently flummoxed by the County’s decision to focus its resources on local priorities and public safety, the United States sues to demand Washtenaw County’s cooperation, the use of its jail cells, and its resources,” Behm wrote.
Her ruling rested on the Tenth Amendment’s anti-commandeering doctrine, which bars Washington from forcing state and local officials to carry out federal policy. “But neither the federal government nor the President may conscript local officials to enforce their will,” Behm wrote.
The most damaging moment came at oral argument. According to a footnote in Behm’s opinion, the Trump DOJ’s own attorney conceded that a central pillar of his statutory reading had never been endorsed by any court.
“At oral argument, Plaintiff’s counsel admitted that he was not aware of any case that supports his argument,” Behm noted, without naming the DOJ lawyer in question.
Behm accused the Trump administration of trying to rewrite the rules through the back door, and swatted down its insistence that it was not asking the county to hold anyone.
“The government attempts to smuggle in two sea changes in immigration law enforcement through this view,” Behm wrote. “But as this court has recently reminded a self-represented litigant, ‘saying so does not make it so.’”
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