A federal judge blocked the Trump administration on Monday from overruling state immigration regulations in Minnesota, marking a blow for federal power.
The Trump administration filed a lawsuit in September against the Twin Cities, Hennepin County, and the state over “sanctuary city policies” that limit local law enforcement’s collaboration with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. U.S. District Judge Eric C. Tostrud, who was appointed by President Donald Trump, dismissed the complaint this week, describing the government’s attempt to preempt local regulation as a violation of the 10th Amendment. He said the disputed policies merely “regulate how state and local officials perform their duties.”
“They do not command the federal government or its contractors to act. They do not forbid the federal government or its contractors from acting,” Tostrud wrote in court filings. They do not control how the federal government or its contractors undertake their work. Rather, they regulate how state and local officials perform their duties.”
“The challenged provisions do not single the federal government out for less favorable treatment, at least not in any sense that shows an intergovernmental immunity violation,” he continued.
The Trump administration has argued that the challenged policies, which include state statutes limiting access to driver’s license and vehicle registration data for immigration enforcement, as well as local ordinances barring state officers from enforcing federal immigration law, violate the supremacy clause of the Constitution, which states that federal law must be supreme over state and local law.
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“Minnesota officials are jeopardizing the safety of their own citizens by allowing illegal aliens to circumvent the legal process,” then-Attorney General Pam Bondi said last year, as the Justice Department filed the lawsuit.
However, Tostrud ruled that forcing local jurisdictions to comply with federal requests to hold a deportation target for pickup, among other policies, violates state power as described in the 10th Amendment.