Federal judge throws out Trump administration's lawsuit against NYC's sanctuary laws

A federal judge in Brooklyn has thrown out the Trump administration's lawsuit challenging New York City's sanctuary laws, handing the city a legal win in its running fight with the federal government over immigration enforcement, Gothamist reported.

In a 25-page memorandum and order dated Thursday, Oct. 15, U.S. District Judge Ramón E. Reyes Jr. granted the city's motion to dismiss and directed the clerk to close the case.

What the judge decided

The Justice Department sued the city in July 2025, arguing that local rules limiting cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement get in the way of federal immigration enforcement and violate the Constitution's Supremacy Clause. Reyes rejected that on several grounds:

• No standing. The federal government could not show its claimed injuries were traceable to the city's rules, which he found are "facially consistent" with the federal information-sharing law it relied on.
• No preemption. Even if the government had standing, he wrote, its argument that federal law overrides the city's rules fails.
• No commandeering. Requiring local officials to assist with immigration enforcement would violate the Tenth Amendment's anti-commandeering doctrine.
• No discrimination. Rules that single out immigration enforcement do not discriminate against the federal government, he found.

In a footnote, Reyes noted that the case is one of nearly a dozen recent federal challenges to state and local sanctuary policies, and that the government's challenges had been rejected in all of the earlier cases. Because "much has already been written" on the issues, he said, his decision would be relatively brief. According to Quartz, citing The New York Times, Reyes was appointed by President Joe Biden in 2023.

What the city's laws do

The challenged provisions of the city's Administrative Code and an NYPD operations order say the Department of Correction, the Department of Probation and the NYPD may honor an ICE detainer only when federal authorities bring a judicial warrant and the person has been convicted of a violent or serious crime or is a possible match on the terrorist screening list, according to the ruling. The rules also bar using city time and property for civil immigration enforcement and limit what information city agencies pass to immigration authorities.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani called the decision "a victory for New Yorkers and a rebuke to ICE's deportation agenda" in a statement, adding that the court made clear the federal government "cannot commandeer our City workers." The Justice Department did not immediately respond to Gothamist's request for comment. It was not immediately clear whether the government would appeal.

Next target: private parking lots

On Friday morning, Mamdani and more than 100 elected officials across the state sent a letter asking owners and operators of private parking lots and garages in the five boroughs not to rent, lend or otherwise make their property available to ICE as a staging ground, Gothamist and ABC7 reported. Signers include Sens. Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, City Council Speaker Julie Menin and most of the Council, according to Gothamist.

City rules already keep ICE off city-owned property, but they do not cover privately owned lots, ABC7 noted. The letter points to the Target parking lot near the Marble Hill shooting, two bank lots on Northern Boulevard in Queens and a garage on Morton Street in Lower Manhattan, whose owner ended its ICE parking contract in May. A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson told Gothamist that ICE did not use the Target lot as a staging ground the day Oscar Belgal was shot, and that officers are legally allowed to use public parking lots.