A state cannot control the federal government and vice versa since each is sovereign, Circuit Judge Stephanos Bibas wrote.
New Jersey does not have the authority to prohibit private prison companies from housing illegal immigrants on behalf of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit ruled on July 22.
In August 2021, New Jersey Gov. Philip Murphy signed into law Assembly Bill 5207, which bans state and local entities, as well as private detention facilities, from entering into agreements to detain illegal immigrants. In February 2023, CoreCivic, which operates private correctional and detention facilities across the United States, sued New Jersey officials, including Murphy.
AB 5207 prohibits CoreCivic from renewing a contract with ICE under which the company manages and operates the Elizabeth Detention Center in Elizabeth, New Jersey, which represents “essentially the entire immigration detention capacity for the Federal Government in New Jersey,” the lawsuit said.
The complaint argued that AB 5207 “undermines and eliminates the congressionally funded and approved enforcement of federal immigration law by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) within the State of New Jersey.”
In a July 22 ruling, the Third Circuit appeals court sided with CoreCivic.
“Just as the federal government cannot control a state, so too a state cannot control the federal government. Each is sovereign. Each is ‘protected from incursion by the other,’” Circuit Judge Stephanos Bibas wrote.
Sometimes, a state interferes directly with federal policy, destroying it through “hostile legislation,” he added.
“And when it crosses that line, it violates the Constitution. New Jersey is on the wrong side of that line. It dislikes some of the federal government’s immigration tools, so it passed a law with the ‘intent’ to forbid new contracts for civil immigration detention,” Bibas stated.
“Because New Jersey’s law violates intergovernmental immunity, we will affirm the District Court’s summary judgment for the contractor.”
The summary judgment had favored CoreCivic and declared AB 5207 “unconstitutional.”
Bibas was joined by Circuit Judge Cheryl Ann Krause.
Circuit Judge Thomas Ambro said in a dissent that New Jersey’s law only directly regulates the state, local governments, and private companies.
