Biden-appointed judge deals Trump another sanctuary city defeat in major immigration fight

A federal judge has thrown out the Trump administration's lawsuit against New York City's sanctuary policies, a significant setback for the Justice Department in its broader campaign against local limits on immigration cooperation. The city was sued in July 2025, one of more than two dozen such cases brought against states and localities. U.S. District Judge Ramón E. Reyes Jr., a Biden appointee, concluded that Washington could not sue over the city's limits on honoring ICE detainers, since state laws with similar restrictions would stay in force even if the city's were struck down. He also held that the preemption theories failed because the federal statutes involved do not govern private actors, and he said the Justice Department's approach amounted to a "backdoor around the Tenth Amendment." On information-sharing, Reyes found that federal protections cover citizenship and immigration status, not release dates or whereabouts, according to Fox News.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani praised the decision on X, saying the federal government had tried to make city workers into deportation agents. Abhishek Kambli, a former federal prosecutor now at Holtzman Vogel, told Fox News Digital that the ruling misreads anti-commandeering law, which he said bars compelling assistance but not stopping active obstruction.

Summarized by PolitiKool from Fox News’s reporting. Read the full story at Fox News →