The Trump administration sued New York City on Thursday over its “sanctuary” laws, continuing a monthslong effort to crack down on localities that try to shield undocumented immigrants from federal detainment efforts.
“New York City has released thousands of criminals on the streets to commit violent crimes against law-abiding citizens due to sanctuary city policies. If New York City won’t stand up for the safety of its citizens, we will,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said.
Included in Trump’s effort to drastically reduce the flow of unlawful immigration into the United States has been a concerted effort by his administration to crack down on so-called sanctuary jurisdictions, described as states, cities, counties or municipalities that enact laws that effectively prevent local officials from cooperating with federal immigration authorities.
The administration alleged New York’s sanctuary city policies “impede the Federal Government’s ability to enforce the federal immigration laws” and “violate the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution.”
“New York City has long been at the vanguard of interfering with enforcing this country’s immigration laws. Its history as a sanctuary city dates back to 1989, and its efforts to thwart federal immigration enforcement have only intensified since,” the complaint reads.
The Trump Justice Department, meanwhile, said the city’s immigration policies have the “purpose” and “effect” of making it more difficult for federal immigration officers to carry out their responsibilities.
“These provisions intentionally obstruct the sharing of information envisioned and affirmatively protected by Congress, including sharing basic information such as release dates, court appearance dates, and custodial status,” the complaint reads.
Among the defendants named in the suit are New York Mayor Eric Adams; City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, a former mayoral candidate; and Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch.
In the suit, filed in the Eastern District of New York, the administration asks the court to declare that the city’s laws violate the Supremacy Clause and are therefore invalid. The administration also asked the court to permanently prohibit the city’s departments and officials from enforcing the sanctuary city policies.
Mayor Adams had sought to establish a friendly relationship with administration officials, meeting with Trump’s “border czar,” Tom Homan, before Trump’s inauguration to discuss what he called a shared goal to remove violent immigrants from the city. Adams went as far as to publicly back a bill that would roll back parts of the city’s sanctuary policies to better allow cooperation with the federal government, a move that ultimately would be up to the City Council to enact.
Despite the early outreach, Homan this week sharpened his attacks on New York, which he has described as “the biggest sanctuary city in this country,” after an off-duty Customs and Border Protection agent was shot in the city. Several Trump administration officials, including Homan and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, attributed the shooting to the city’s sanctuary policies. City officials have detained a person of interest and said the shooting was an attempted robbery that did not appear to be connected to the victim’s job.
“The sanctuary cities are now our priority. We’re going to flood the zone,” Homan said Monday. “So sanctuary cities got exactly what they don’t want: more agents in the community and more agents in the worksite.”
Adams said he “will review the lawsuit” in a statement on X that also reiterated his support for re-examining local ordinances on immigration.
“We support the essence of the local laws put in place by the City Council — but I have also been clear that they go too far when it comes to dealing with those violent criminals on our streets and have urged the Council to reexamine them to ensure we can effectively work with the federal government to make our city safer,” Adams said. “So far, the Council has refused.”
A spokesperson for the city council said in a statement that city’s law department is reviewing the lawsuit.
“Pam Bondi may want to distract from reality, but the facts are clear: the evidence consistently shows that cities with sanctuary laws are safer than those without them,” the spokesperson said. “When residents feel comfortable reporting crime and cooperating with local law enforcement, we are all safer, something both Republican and Democratic mayors of New York City have recognized. It is the Trump Administration indiscriminately targeting people at civil court hearings, detaining high schoolers, and separating families that make our city and nation less safe.”
The city Corrections Department, the city Probation Department and the police department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Across both of his presidential terms, Trump has threatened to withhold federal funds from sanctuary jurisdictions and prosecute state or local officials who impede enforcement actions to varying degrees of success.
In January, Trump signed an executive order directing Noem and Bondi to ensure sanctuary jurisdictions “do not receive access to federal funds” and to consider pursuing criminal or civil penalties if localities “interfere with the enforcement of Federal law.”
A federal judge in April blocked the effort to withhold federal funds, finding that Trump’s order violated the Constitution’s separation of powers principles. The same judge blocked a similar effort by Trump in 2017.
The administration sued the state of New York this year over its “Green Light Law,” which allows the Department of Motor Vehicles to issue driver’s licenses to undocumented immigrants and limits the sharing of related data with federal immigration authorities. In addition, the law requires state officials to notify license holders when their information is requested. The Justice Department is seeking to have the law declared unlawful and unenforceable.
In addition to New York, the Trump administration has targeted other Democratic-leaning communities over policies it alleges impede federal authorities’ ability to enforce immigration laws.
The administration sued the state of Illinois and city of Chicago in February, seeking to block the enforcement of a law that bars state and local law enforcement agencies from assisting the federal government with civil immigration enforcement absent a criminal warrant.
In June, the administration sued the city of Los Angeles over its immigration laws, arguing that they interfere and discriminate against federal agents by treating them differently from other law enforcement agents in California by restricting access to property and individual detainees. In the suit, the administration pointed to the laws as being behind recent clashes between federal immigration officials and protesters in Los Angeles last month.
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