A federal judge on Monday delivered a scorching defeat to the Trump administration, saying New York can enforce its law prohibiting ICE from making arrests at state courthouses.
Judge Mae D’Agostino, an Obama appointee, said the state has long recognized a right to be free from civil arrest while on the way to or conducting business at a courthouse. Federal law can’t trump that, she decided.
“New York is not attempting to regulate federal agents and it is not prohibiting the federal government from
enforcing immigration law,” she wrote. “Rather, it is simply defining, as a proprietor, what activities are not permissible in state-owned facilities.”
At issue is the state’s Protect Our Courts Act, enacted in 2020 as a reaction to the first Trump administration’s push for immigration enforcement.
It says someone going to court as a party, a witness or who has a close relationship with a party or witness cannot be arrested without a judicial warrant. Since being in the country illegally is a civil offense, no judicial warrant is available.
New York also has an executive order issued by then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo that bars arrests inside state government buildings.
The case is the latest in a string of losses for the Trump administration as it tries to cut through state and local government sanctuary policies.
Over the summer, a judge upheld sanctuary policies in Illinois and Chicago against a similar Trump lawsuit.
And efforts by the administration to withhold federal grant funding from jurisdictions with sanctuary policies have also been blocked in court.
The court decision goes further, however, suggesting states can affirmatively ban ICE enforcement in some areas of their jurisdiction.
Judge D’Agostino said that since New York law enforcement provides security at the courthouse, and since New York officials publish the schedules of when people are expected to show up for cases, ICE would be taking advantage of those efforts in order to make its own arrests.
“Compelling New York to allow federal immigration authorities to reap the benefits of the work of state employees is no different than permitting the federal government to commandeer state officials directly in furtherance of federal objectives,” she wrote.
The issue has been tested in the courts before, when New York challenged ICE’s courthouse arrest policy during the previous Trump administration.
A federal district judge in that earlier case also sided with the state.
ICE appealed, but before the circuit court could rule, the Biden administration took over and placed severe restrictions on courthouse arrests.
The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals then vacated the district court’s prior ruling.
New York adopted the Protect Our Courts Act after that.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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