Judge tosses Trump suit over New York City sanctuary laws

A federal judge in Brooklyn dismissed the Trump administration’s lawsuit against New York City’s sanctuary laws on Thursday, Oct. 15, ruling that the Justice Department lacked standing and that its legal arguments failed.

The decision by U.S. District Judge Ramón E. Reyes Jr. of the Eastern District of New York is the latest loss for the administration, which has filed more than two dozen suits against state and local governments over sanctuary and related policies, Fox News reported.

The Justice Department sued the city in July 2025. It argued that city rules limiting how police honour immigration detainers, share custody information and spend municipal resources on deportation work were preempted by federal law and interfered with immigration enforcement.

Reyes disagreed. He found the federal government had no standing to challenge the limits on honouring detainers because New York state law already bars local authorities from holding people solely at the request of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, according to Law Commentary. Striking down the city provisions would therefore leave those state protections in place and would not remedy the harm the government alleged.

The judge wrote that even if the United States had standing, “its preemption claims fail,” because the federal statutes at issue do not regulate private actors, Fox News reported. He also described the government’s approach as a “backdoor around the Tenth Amendment.”

On the information-sharing claim, Reyes found that the federal protections the Justice Department cited cover citizenship and immigration status, not release dates or a person’s whereabouts. Fox News reported that he called the department’s contrary position “contrary to law.”

The ruling rests on the anti-commandeering doctrine, which holds that the federal government generally cannot force state and local officials to carry out federal enforcement. Federal agents can still operate in the city, but they cannot compel its employees or resources to help them.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani welcomed the decision in a post on X, saying the federal government “tried to turn our public servants into deportation agents,” Fox News reported.

The Justice Department did not have a statement in the coverage reviewed by Canada News Media. Abhishek Kambli, a former federal prosecutor and partner at Holtzman Vogel, told Fox News he disagreed with the reasoning and argued the city’s laws harm federal authority even where similar state laws exist.

The Department of Homeland Security said Oct. 9 that New York City failed to honour 14,916 ICE detainers issued between Jan. 20, 2025, and Sept. 14, 2026, according to a report by CDM. Canada News Media did not independently verify that figure.

Courts have reached similar conclusions elsewhere. A federal judge dismissed the administration’s suit over Boston’s Trust Act in May, and a judge dismissed a separate challenge to Rochester’s policies in September, Law Commentary reported. Suits against Los Angeles and Minnesota were also dismissed, according to Fox News.

The Justice Department can appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. None of the reports reviewed said whether it will.

The immigration fight is also moving through other courts. The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear the administration’s no-bond detention policy, and the Justice Department recently filed a separate suit in a dispute over alleged noncitizen voters in California.

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Via Fox News, Law Commentary and CDM.