Trump administration urges Seventh Circuit to revive lawsuit over Illinois’s ‘sanctuary’ immigration policies

The Trump administration urged a federal appeals court on Thursday to revive its lawsuit against Illinois’s and Chicago’s “sanctuary” policies, which the administration claims unlawfully obstruct immigration enforcement operations.The lawsuit is one of several similar legal battles waged by the Trump administration against “sanctuary” cities and states, which have so far been unsuccessful in federal district courts.A three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit heard arguments from lawyers representing the Department of Justice on one side, and representing Illinois, Cook County, and the city of Chicago on the other. DOJ lawyer Michael Talent accused the state, county, and city of “thwarting” the ability of federal immigration officers to detain illegal immigrants arrested by local law enforcement. Talent argued to the panel that the Immigration and Nationality Act requires local law enforcement authorities to share information about illegal immigrants detained by state and local police, along with allowing federal officers to take possession of those criminal illegal immigrants once their state or local detention has concluded. He added that Illinois, Cook County, and Chicago have made it more difficult for federal authorities to arrest criminal illegal immigrants through policies that bar information sharing and require immigration officers to try to arrest illegal immigrants on the streets after they are released from state or local custody.“If Congress authorized federal officials to assume custody before the end of the scheduled period of state incarceration, states could not plausibly claim a 10th Amendment right to refuse to relinquish custody and release the alien onto the street,” Talent said. “Congress’s decision to instead allow states to complete the scheduled prison sentence for these criminal aliens does not perversely have the effect of authorizing the states to interfere with the orderly enforcement of federal law.”The appeals court panel appeared skeptical of the Trump administration’s arguments, questioning how much the policies impede federal immigration operations, whether Illinois’s policies violate federal law, and whether there is discretion in the INA for local governments’ cooperation with federal immigration officials.“Whatever discretion the states have in the INA, they can’t actively thwart the implementation of federal officials. They can’t actively thwart federal officials who are trying to implement Congress’s purposes to take these individuals in custody and expeditiously remove them,” Talent said.Alex Hemmer, Illinois deputy solicitor general arguing on behalf of the state, emphasized to the panel that under federal law, state and local law enforcement do not have to use their resources to help with federal immigration enforcement, pointing to the federal district court’s decision to dismiss the case.“The state of Illinois, like its municipal counterparts, has chosen not to require state police officers to assist the federal government in enforcing civil immigration law on the state’s time and dime,” Hemmer said. “As the district court held, the INA does not preempt that choice, and that’s true.”The panel questioned Hemmer over whether the state was “overexaggerating” the “effort and how much funds needed” to tell federal officials when criminal illegal immigrants would be released from state custody. Hemmer responded by arguing that the amount of effort or funding does not change their stance that the INA does not require the level of cooperation the DOJ is demanding.The three-judge panel included U.S. Circuit Judges Kenneth Ripple, an appointee of former President Ronald Reagan; Michael Scudder, an appointee of President Donald Trump; and Rebecca Taibleson, also a Trump appointee. The panel did not indicate how it would rule, but it did offer sharp questions to lawyers on both sides of the case.The Trump administration has attempted several similar lawsuits against other cities, including New York City and Los Angeles, with minimal success. It has pursued other lawsuits seeking to force cooperation between local law enforcement agencies and federal immigration officials.FOURTH CIRCUIT GRILLS DOJ ON LAWSUIT OVER VIRGINIA’S CRACKDOWN ON LOCAL POLICE COOPERATION WITH ICEIn Virginia, the administration sued Commonwealth officials over a law purporting to terminate various agreements the federal government reached with counties and cities to cooperate with immigration officers. A federal appeals court panel heard arguments in an appeal in that lawsuit earlier this week.In its various immigration legal battles over the past two years, the Trump administration has typically seen more success the higher in the federal court system a case goes, with the DOJ being overwhelmingly successful before the Supreme Court. The high court will hear two major immigration cases later this term, regarding the administration’s policy of deporting illegal immigrants to “third countries” and the administration’s mandatory detention policy for illegal immigrants.