Trump Waging War Against Blue States and Cities

So much for "states’ rights"

A federal judge in the Northern District of Illinois on Friday threw out the government’s lawsuit claiming federal law preempts local laws limiting cooperation with Trump’s mass deportation effort. (The latter are improperly labeled “sanctuary city laws.” Localities are not claiming federal law is inapplicable, but rather, as discussed below, are declining to provide shock troops for Trump’s police state.) It was the latest round, and latest MAGA defeat, in Donald Trump’s war against states that resist his cruel, lawless, and dangerous agenda.

Trump’s war against blue states is central to his dictatorial ambitions. To achieve unlimited control, he must subjugate independent sources of power and information—from TV network news operations to universities to civil servants to Congress itself. Ironically (for a party that once fetishized states’ rights), Trump’s MAGA GOP consistently seeks to obliterate federalism and force states—generally blue ones—to do his bidding.

The scope of Trump’s onslaught against blue states is stunning. His vendetta against them played out in his determination to override California’s emissions regulations. His war continued with the big, ugly bill, which prevents states from filling the $1T hole in federal Medicaid spending by raising their own funds. (The bill originally contained another provision to prevent states from regulating AI, an infringement on state authority that Democrats narrowly defeated.) Most recently, Trump’s homelessness diktat threatens to yank funding from cities and states that do not follow his command to criminalize homelessness.

Moreover, Trump’s assault on federalism is a critical aspect of his militarized mass deportation operation. (Under the executive decree that he first directed against California, Trump deployed Marines—who have since withdrawn because they had nothing to do—and nationalized the California National Guard against Gov. Gavin Newsom’s wishes.) On Friday, U.S. District Court Judge Lindsay Jenkins for the Northern District of Illinois slapped down Trump’s effort to force Illinois and local jurisdictions to facilitate Trump’s vicious mass deportation plan. The Trump regime sued Illinois, Cook County, the Cook County Board of Commissioners, the City of Chicago, and individual officials including Gov. JB Pritzker, claiming that federal law preempts state and local policies that prohibit state and local government officials from “complying with detainers [administrative warrants], communicating with immigration agents before releasing noncitizens, providing immigration agents access to noncitizens in custody, and giving immigration agents information (such as contact information and release dates) about noncitizens.” In its bogus legal action, the Trump regime misapplied federal immigration law permitting local cooperation with Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) to argue that states and localities are obligated to do the feds’ bidding.

After dismissing claims against individual officials and local entities on procedural grounds, Jenkins knocked down the government’s attempt to deprive Illinois of the autonomy to set its own law enforcement priorities and direct its own personnel. First, Jenkins rejected the government’s attempt to demand information not even covered in the federal law at issue. “[T]he court is not persuaded that the information the United States seeks—noncitizens’ contact information, custody status, and release dates—is linked to their status such that it is within the scope of even a slightly broader reading of [federal immigration law],” he determined. It is worth noting that courts have consistently rejected the government’s interpretation, yet the Trump team has not stopped using the same discredited interpretation.

As for compelling the defendants to hand over the specific information that is covered by federal law (i.e., immigration status), Jenkins reminded the parties: “Congress may only legislate upon individuals, as is reflected in the Framers’ debates during the Constitutional Convention and their deliberate rejection of a plan that would have allowed Congress to legislate on States.” Jenkins found that the Trump regime was impermissibly attempting to wield federal immigration law against local entities, “prohibiting [local] restrictions on their ability to share certain immigration-related information with DHS.” And that, as stated in the Constitution, the federal government cannot do.

In sum, states have protection under the 10^th Amendment to set their own policies. In demanding that blue cities and states follow the feds’ direction, the Trump regime impedes localities from translating “voter preferences into policy.” And, Jenkins wrote, such action denigrates state autonomy by seizing control over local jurisdictions’ employees (unconstitutionally “commandeering” them)—something at the heart of state sovereignty. (States’ refusal to be dragooned into manning Trump’s police state does not, as the government claimed, amount to impairing federal policy; rather, it constitutes exercising constitutionally protected sovereignty.)

Despite Trump’s executive decrees and legally dubious suits, states have every right to make their own law enforcement priorities and fund the policies they select. As Pritzker put it in a written statement, “Illinois ensures law enforcement time and energy is spent fighting crime—not carrying out the Trump Administration’s unlawful policies or troubling tactics.” Jenkins’ ruling protected its right to do so.

Local and state authorities going forward can cite as much, using Jenkins’s reasoning. (The feds filed a suit similar to the one before Jenkins against New York City.) Blue states will need to defeat more of Trump’s frivolous legal actions and block his impermissible executive edicts that attempt to bully them into carrying out his cruel, ineffective, and often illegal initiatives.

Protection of state and local sovereignty is more than just an arcane constitutional debate; it is one more critical battleground in the fight to block Trump’s quest for dictatorial power.