Citing the 10th Amendment, the court threw out the federal government’s challenge to policies forbidding cooperation with ICE.
A federal judge on July 20 threw out the Trump administration’s challenge to a series of so-called sanctuary laws and policies in Minnesota that limit cooperation with federal immigration enforcement.
The decision leaves in place sanctuary-style laws and policies in Minnesota.
The lawsuit is one of dozens the federal government has brought all over the country during the second Trump administration against sanctuary jurisdictions in hopes of bolstering enforcement of the federal Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). Sanctuary jurisdictions have been largely successful in fending off such lawsuits, but the Trump administration has won some rulings in limited contexts, including those in which courts have allowed Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations to continue.
Judge Eric Tostrud issued the 56-page opinion and order in United States v. State of Minnesota. He found that requiring the state and localities to enforce federal immigration laws would run afoul of the U.S. Constitution’s 10th Amendment, which creates a balance of power between the states and the federal government.
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) sued the defendants—Minnesota, the cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, Hennepin County, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, and Hennepin County Sheriff Dawanna Witt—in their official capacities.
The lawsuit challenged various state and local laws, policies, and practices that prevent or discourage immigration enforcement cooperation, the judge recounted in the opinion.
Some Minnesota laws restrict the sharing of information that various governments may hold about noncitizens in their jurisdictions. Others prohibit officials from honoring ICE immigration detainers and forbid local law enforcement officers from participating in immigration enforcement. A detainer is not a criminal arrest warrant but is a formal request in which ICE directs a state or local law enforcement agency to keep someone in custody for an additional period so ICE can take the individual into custody for possible deportation proceedings.
The federal government argued that these Minnesota laws and policies violate the Constitution’s supremacy clause, which provides that federal laws prevail over conflicting state laws, the opinion said.
The DOJ said that these laws and policies are preempted, or overridden by federal law, and that they burden the federal government, which is a violation of the intergovernmental immunity doctrine. That constitutional doctrine prevents states and their subdivisions from imposing burdens on the federal government or its operations. The department sought a declaration that the laws and policies were unconstitutional and an injunction forbidding the defendants from enforcing them.
