{"id":376679,"date":"2026-10-19T08:36:07","date_gmt":"2026-10-19T08:36:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/376679\/"},"modified":"2026-10-19T08:36:07","modified_gmt":"2026-10-19T08:36:07","slug":"nyc-sanctuary-stands-as-judge-rejects-trump-attack","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/376679\/","title":{"rendered":"NYC sanctuary stands as judge rejects Trump attack"},"content":{"rendered":"

Another federal judge, this time Ramon Reyes in Brooklyn, has rightly concluded that the Trump administration cannot compel<\/a> states and cities to participate in federal immigration enforcement.<\/p>\n

Thursday\u2019s ruling<\/a> comes from a case that was filed last year against New York City<\/a> on the theory of the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution. But Reyes correctly would have none of it, finding that the feds had no valid standing to even sue, as well as rejecting the case on the merits.<\/p>\n

As he wrote: \u201cThis is among nearly a dozen recent cases in which the United States has challenged state and local so-called \u2018Sanctuary Provisions\u2019 that purportedly effect the federal government\u2019s immigration enforcement activities in violation of the Supremacy Clause. In all prior cases, the United States\u2019 challenges to such provisions have been rejected.\u201d<\/p>\n

So same bad argument and same result.<\/p>\n

Reyes found exactly what his judicial peers around the country have found: The federal government cannot conscript NYC or indeed any other city to participate in its unhinged nationwide immigration crackdown. Donald Trump and his aides may not have all that much interest in the Constitution and our founding principles, but if they were ever to go read up on that, they\u2019d discover that we are a federal system in which states and localities have their own powers and their own jurisdiction that cannot be commandeered by the federal government whenever it wants.<\/p>\n

There are plenty of voluntary ways for local governments and law enforcement entities to choose to cooperate, such as the ill-advised 287(g) agreements that effectively deputize local cops and sheriffs as immigration agents, and which the state Legislature wisely prohibited earlier this year. But such cooperation cannot be compelled, not by lawsuit nor by the illegal withholding of appropriated funds<\/a>, as Trump has also attempted and also been slapped down on.<\/p>\n

That would be true even in the event that the federal government was promulgating its immigration enforcement in ways that were sensical, lawful, and conducive to public safety, but they clearly are not.<\/p>\n

In this context, the question isn\u2019t why would a city bar this cooperation, but why they wouldn\u2019t. Ultimately, what municipal governments and police should be worried about is the safety, prosperity and quality of life of local residents. Sanctuary provisions helped protect all of these.<\/p>\n

Local communities, including NYC\u2019s famously, historically diverse immigrant neighborhoods, are much likelier to not only cooperate with local law enforcement but participate in public programs, be civically engaged and vote when they do not have to even remotely worry that their local institutions are going to serve as a conduit for them or their families to be targeted by this out-of-control administration.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, we cannot assume that Reyes\u2019 ruling is the last word. Trump clearly believes that he is king of America and has decided he will not stop trying to punish the sanctuary jurisdictions \u2014 which he has never forgiven for not voting for him \u2014 that defy his authoritarian crackdown. We assume the White House is trying to get one of these losing cases before the U.S. Supreme Court\u2019s \u201cemergency\u201d shadow docket so they can overturn a century of precedent and legal understanding on a whim without explanation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Another federal judge, this time Ramon Reyes in Brooklyn, has rightly concluded that the Trump administration cannot compel…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":376680,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[9,56,63,65,64,299],"class_list":["post-376679","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-new-york","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news","tag-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376679","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=376679"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376679\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/376680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=376679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=376679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=376679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}