DOJ Sues New Jersey Over Order That Limits ICE Cooperation
Bondi: “States may not deliberately interfere with our efforts to remove illegal aliens and arrest criminals — New Jersey’s sanctuary policies will not stand.”
The Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against New Jersey and Democratic Gov. Mikie Sherill over an executive order that limits ICE cooperation and expands sanctuary status.
The DOJ claims Executive Order 12 violates the Supremacy Clause, discriminates against federal immigration officials, and obstructs justice.
“Federal agents are risking their lives to keep New Jersey citizens safe, and yet New Jersey’s leaders are enacting policies designed to obstruct and endanger law enforcement,” said Attorney General Pamela Bondi. “States may not deliberately interfere with our efforts to remove illegal aliens and arrest criminals — New Jersey’s sanctuary policies will not stand.”
Sherill signed Executive Order 12, which prohibits ICE and federal immigration officials from arresting criminal aliens on and inside state property, including state prisons.
New Jersey defines “’State property’ as ‘facilities, premises, and parcels, or portions thereof, that are owned, operated, leased, or controlled by New Jersey Executive Branch departments and agencies, including but not limited to office buildings, parking lots, and parking garages.’”
“The State of New Jersey has adopted this policy with the clear objective of obstructing President Trump from enforcing federal immigration law,” according to the lawsuit. “The policy is designed to and in fact does interfere with and discriminate against the Executive’s enforcement of federal immigration law in violation of the Supremacy Clause.”
The Executive Order allows arrests only in public areas if “authorized by a judicial warrant or judicial order.”
The DOJ says the Executive Order obstructs the federal government from performing lawful operations:
The New Jersey Executive Order obstructs such operations in at least three ways. First, the New Jersey Executive Order prohibits federal immigration agents from accessing non-public areas at all. Second, the New Jersey Executive Order prohibits any court security staff that are members of “Executive Branch departments and agencies,” from cooperating with federal immigration agents for the purpose of civil immigration enforcement. Third, even as to entering and exiting the building, federal immigration agents are restricted from accessing non-public entrances and exits. There is no indication on the face of the New Jersey Executive Order that officials working for the Federal Bureau of Prisons, Drug Enforcement Administration, Bureau of Alcohol, Tabacco, and Firearms, or the Federal Bureau of Investigations are subjected to similar regulation and discrimination.
The lawsuit also points out that the Executive Order protects dangerous criminal illegal aliens.
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It’s my understanding that while a state or municipal entity doesn’t have to cooperate with federal government, it cannot obstruct federal government from doing its job. So, I think this part:
“prohibits ICE and federal immigration officials from arresting criminal aliens on and inside state property, including state prisons”
will be struck down. But the prison/jail still doesn’t have to honor a federal detainer (which is stupid, but whatever). So, the illegal gets released from prison and walks right into the open arms of ICE standing right there at the gate.
At least that’s how it should be done, anyway.
If a private person is harboring a fugitive from justice, that’s a crime. Obviously, a State holding a fugitive from federal LE isn’t committing a crime when the State is lawfully detaining the fugitive. But if a private person makes arrangements for a fugitive to evade federal LE, that’s obstruction. Why wouldn’t a State be similarly obstructing when it similarly arranges (by refusal to honor a detainer) for a fugitive to evade federal LE? A State may not be obliged to assist federal LE, but it also can’t legally assist the fugitive. Assisting a fugitive to avoid arrest goes beyond non-assistance.
An analogy (possibly a bad one) is the difference between making vague threats and making specific threats against an identifiable person. Both are threats, but the latter is a crime while the former is not. “Non-assistance” means “We will not help you.” But by not honoring a detainer, the State steps into a level of “specificity” in which it actively frustrates federal LE operations for the benefit of specific fugitives.
Because it has no duty to honor the detainer. It’s not making any special arrangements for the prisoner, it’s just not assisting the feds, which is its right.
It isn’t. It’s simply letting him go when his sentence is over, and what happens next is none of its concern. What it refuses to do is inform ICE to be there waiting, let alone to hold the person for them.
The difference is not between vagueness and specificity but between an actual threat and one that isn’t real. The definition of a true threat is one that is made in a way that would lead a reasonable person to be seriously afraid that the speaker has both the means and the intention of carrying it out. It doesn’t matter whether he does have both or either; what matters is whether a reasonable person would think he does If it’s obvious to a reasonable person either that he doesn’t really intend to do it, or that he’s unlikely to be able to do it, let alone both, then it’s not a true threat and it’s protected speech.
There’s no analogy between that and our case. It’s long-established law that states and their subsidiaries are entitled to refuse the federal government all assistance, no matter how trivial, and are entitled to ban all of their employees, and those of their subsidiaries, from rendering such assistance while on the job.
If prison officers know that ICE is waiting outside the front door for a departing prisoner, and they deliberately let him out the back door instead, or transport him in the trunk of a police car to some safe location, that is a federal crime and they can be arrested and charged. But if they simply let him go without informing ICE, and ICE hasn’t set up a 24/7 perimeter in anticipation of the release, then that’s their right.
“Because it has no duty to honor the detainer. It’s not making any special arrangements for the prisoner, it’s just not assisting the feds, which is its right.”
If you have a fugitive in your home and a federal agent arrives at the door and asks for the surrender of said fugitive, if you refuse (and maybe bar their entry,* allowing – not assisting directly – the fugitive to escape out the back door) that’s obstruction. If the federal government comes to a State and says “You have a fugitive in your custody and we want you to turn him over to us when you’re through with him,” how is failure of the State to turn over the fugitive not obstruction?
There may be no law requiring a State’s cooperation, but there are certainly laws that criminalize certain behaviors, and harboring a fugitive is a crime. When a State has the ability to surrender the fugitive to LE and does not, but rather allows the fugitive to escape federal custody (this does not require assistance to the fugitive, it merely requires the State to not comply with the federal government’s request), by what principle is the State or its officials excused from being charged with obstruction?
State officials have an obligation to not violate the law. Why are they not held to the same standard as would a homeowner be held?
*Barring entry by the homeowner is analogous to the State not allowing federal LEOs to enter a detention facility to make an arrest of their own. Which makes me think – Can someone not in actual physical custody be declared “under arrest”? If possible, then anyone who sets free someone they have been noticed is under arrest has freed a prisoner. That would be a crime.
Why? If they want to enter state property and arrest someone there, they need to get a warrant, just as they do if they want to arrest someone on any other private property.
Only if ICE knows when the person will be released, and bothers to arrive there in time. One of the issues state and local authorities have had with ICE detainers is that ICE doesn’t show up to pick the person up, and leaves them in what’s technically illegal detention, since the person has already served whatever state or local time he was sentenced to.
Oh, and informing ICE when and where the person will be released is also assistance, which sanctuary states forbid their officers from giving. A prison guard who drops a dime to ICE to give them this information can be charged under state law. As the supreme court said 200 years ago that states can do.
crush the communistnazi regimes while we can
we are running out of time
wondering if a president rubio would continue the djt immigration policies???
Nothing but kabuki.
The DOJ’s suit doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in h-ll of succeeding. These are the same courts that have thwarted DJT’s agenda at every turn.
Fuhgeddaboudid
It has no chance of succeeding because the constitution protects NJ’s right to do exactly what it’s doing. So long as state officers don’t actively assist fugitives to evade arrest, they’re within the law.
Meh, no worries. Make voluntary cooperation with ALL Federal LEO the minimum to get cooperation from ANY Federal LEO Agency. If they’re sanctuary States don’t want ICE they don’t get FBI resources or funding/participation with ‘joint task forces’. The latter is a bigger deal than it seems b/c the States/Local LEO are able to leverage the Joint TF to muddy the waters on civil asset forfeiture as to who has the assets, their authority to seize and the timeline for recovery is much longer.
The courts have said that:
1. Only Congress can make such a decision, not the executive.
2. Congress must word its decision explicitly.
3. Even then, the penalty can’t be coercive. The state must remain with a realistic choice whether to cooperate and get the additional assistance, or to refuse and do without it. So the assistance at stake can’t be so much that the state can’t afford to do without it.
Indeed they may not. But NJ is not doing that.
So? It’s private property, and the state has the same rights as any other property owner. If law enforcement want to enter without the owner’s consent they need a warrant.
Yes. That is the whole point of sanctuary states. The Supreme Court explicitly upheld the states’ right to do exactly this, about 200 years ago. IIRC it was a decision by Justice Story.
Again, private property. Get a warrant.
They don’t have to be. A property owner can say these policemen are welcome on my property and these aren’t. There’s no rule that if you have to admit all officers or none.
That is a matter of policy, not law, and therefore is not of any legitimate concern to a court. A court has no right to take policy considerations into account in deciding the law. NJ’s attitude is certainly bad policy; I don’t think anyone here would dispute that, unless one of our occasional Democrat mobies swings by. But as a matter of law it seems to be on extremely solid ground. It’s not interfering with federal operations in any way; it’s simply refusing to assist in any way. It’s treating ICE exactly as the northern states treated federal slave catchers, with the courts’ blessing, and as some states treated the Bureau of Prohibition.
Property owned by the state government is not private property. It’s public property because the state government is owned by the people.
No, it is not public property. It is private property, exactly the same as anyone else’s. The state is the owner, and the public have no more rights there than they do on any other property. You cannot enter state property without permission, and neither can a federal officer without a warrant.
Streets are public property, where people have the right to be without any special permission. Federal officers have the same right, and this order doesn’t even try to prevent that.
Don’t sue the state. Sue the politicians attempting to support the invasion of the United States.
Sue them for what?
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