Federal court dismisses suit against New York’s sanctuary laws in a loss for Trump administration – The Guardian

Federal court dismisses suit against New York’s sanctuary laws in a loss for Trump administration  The Guardian

New York’s mayor celebrated the ruling and said: ‘Our city belongs to all of us, and we will not abandon our neighbors’ A federal court dismissed a lawsuit filed by the Trump administration against New York City’s sanctuary laws on Thursday as the city’s mayor, Zohran Mamdani, heralded the loss, saying he would not allow the government to “use fear to divide our city”. The ruling marks the latest defeat for the federal government, as it sues cities and states over legal protections for immigrants. Federal courts in Los Angeles, Chicago and Minnesota have thrown out similar lawsuits over the last two years. The US district judge Ramón E Reyes Jr affirmed in Thursday’s ruling that “there is nothing within federal law that obligates states to participate in federal immigration enforcement or compels states to comply”.

He argued that the city’s agencies couldn’t be forced into using their resources to enforce civil immigration laws, and rejected the Trump administration’s argument that local officials were illegally obstructing its immigration agenda. Sanctuary laws limit cooperation between local officials and the federal government when it comes to civil immigration enforcement. In New York City, there are limits on the police department’s ability to hold immigrants for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) through detainer requests, and on general information sharing between the agencies. Mamdani