WASHINGTON, D.C. - When President Trump was running for president in 2024, he promised to undertake the largest mass deportation effort in the country’s history in an attempt to undo the damage that Biden-era border policies did to the country. While those efforts have had some good results overall, blue cities and states continue to defy the administration’s efforts, which has pitted the federal government against those jurisdictions.
In response to the unhinged defiance of blue city mayors and blue state governors, those locations have been inundated with lawsuits filed by the U.S. Department of Justice, the Dailyfly reports.
The DOJ has filed a total of 27 lawsuits against over 20 cities, counties, and states that have worked to defy the administration’s border enforcement efforts since President Trump retook office in January 2025. In only the past three months, the DOJ has sued Connecticut, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, a county in Michigan and the city of Philadelphia for attempting to place [unconstitutional] limits on the activities of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents.
These attempts to defy the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution restrict immigration activities in public spaces, restrict how local law enforcement can interact with federal immigration authorities and laughably attempt to ban immigration agents from wearing masks or “concealing” their identity during enforcement operations.
Some claim that so-called sanctuary policies make communities safer and those claims typically come from pro-illegal alien NGOs, such as the National Immigration Law Center, whose senior staff attorney Cassandra Charles claimed the following.
"These sanctuary policies are most times created to help make communities safer. They promote a level of trust and cooperation between communities and public institutions of all kinds,” Charles said.
In fact, many pro-deportation officials claim exactly the opposite, saying that forcing ICE agents to confront illegals on the streets instead of secure locations such as courthouses and police stations lead to violent confrontations, several of which have led to people being killed, including in Minneapolis, and more recently, Houston and Biddeford, Maine.
Charles claims some cities have had sanctuary policies since the 1980s, but says cities and states are creating new protections as the administration has stepped up its deportation campaign, spurred by an estimated 15 million illegals allowed into the country under the Biden administration’s open-border policies.
Charles also claims that the administration is “misinterpreting” the Supremacy Clause. She claims that the clause doesn’t allow the federal government to dictate what laws states can pass nor does it “create a duty for the states to help the federal government enforce federal law.”
While the first claim is somewhat true, banning ICE agents from wearing masks, for example, in the performance of their federal law enforcement duties, appears to be a clear violation of the Supremacy Clause.
The DOJ argues that sanctuary laws, however, violate longstanding constitutional precedent and are designed to prevent federal law enforcement authorities from conducting lawful law enforcement activities, the Dailyfly reports.
“As explained in the DOJ’s briefs in these cases, states and localities do not have a right to obstruct federal law enforcement, to regulate the federal government, or to discriminate against the federal government,” Kiersten Pels, a DOJ spokesperson, wrote in an email. “These and other cases simply seek to vindicate that fundamental aspect of our constitutional structure.”
The success of the federal lawsuits has hinged largely on which president appointed the federal judge hearing the case.
For example, in May 2025, the DOJ sued four cities in New Jersey–Hoboken, Jersey City, Newark, and Paterson–challenging their policies blocking local cooperation with federal immigration authorities. In June 2025, a Biden-appointed U.S. district judge tossed out the suit, claiming the cities’ policies didn’t impede ICE activities due to New Jersey’s sanctuary laws.
Conversely, earlier in July, a U.S. district judge in Pennsylvania sided with the administration in a lawsuit challenging a new Philadelphia policy.
In that case, the DOJ sued after the Philadelphia City Council implemented a policy banning immigration agents from wearing masks, concealing their badges, or using unmarked vehicles while on the job. In this case, the judge, a Trump appointee, cited the Supremacy Clause in siding with the administration and issued a preliminary injunction blocking the city from moving forward.
By approving the policy, the judge ruled, the Philadelphia City Council “attempted to sidestep the Constitution’s clear mandate and disregarded this fundamental principle of law that has informed American jurisprudence for over 200 years.”
The council approved seven ICE-related bills in April. Council member Rule Landau, who sponsored the package, said that some of the other measures in the policy have been implemented.
“If the federal government won’t protect their residents, local leaders have the obligation to step to the plate, and that’s exactly what we did here in Philadelphia,” Landau boasted. “Great news for Philadelphia: We’ve got six laws on the books, and right now we are working on ensuring that the city of Philadelphia clearly spells out how we’re implementing these laws.”
Another sanctuary jurisdiction putting illegal aliens before protecting American citizens.
In April, the DOJ filed a similar lawsuit against New Jersey, which likewise enacted a law in March that "prohibits" ICE agents from shielding their identity while on duty. The ability to shield their identity is vital due to the politically-charged rhetoric coming from the left and where people have attempted to dox ICE agents by revealing their home address and where their children attend school and threatening their families.
More recently, Maryland has been sued by the DOJ over a new law enacted effective May 31 that prohibits state and local correctional officers and law enforcement officers from inquiring about or investigating a person’s immigration status. They are also barred from detaining or transferring a person to federal authorities for a suspected immigration violation without a warrant or court order.
“Such blatant disregard for federal laws that have been on the books for decades is not merely a political disagreement or passive abstention; it is deliberate, disruptive action that jeopardizes public safety for all Americans,” the lawsuit states, arguing that its “purpose and effect is to obstruct federal law enforcement.”
Such laws have also put local police officials in a quandary, and sheriffs from 17 Maryland counties have also sued the state to stop the law, stating that the law puts their agencies in “an impossible and unconstitutional position.”
“If Plaintiffs follow the Act, they are effectively forced to shield removable aliens from federal custody,” the lawsuit states,” further arguing that “if they continue cooperating with ICE as they have for years, they risk state penalties and lawsuits.”
Some pro-deportation organizations argue that, in the case of the Maryland law, it puts the sheriffs in a bad position.
“Either they’re violating the state law and they’re going to get sued by their attorney general, or they’re violating the federal criminal law and they could be prosecuted,” said Chris Hajec, head of litigation at the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which favors stricter immigration enforcement and which filed the lawsuit on behalf of the sheriffs.
A pro-illegal alien lawmaker who sponsored the law, state Sen. Clarence Lam, claims the law doesn’t do what the sheriffs are alleging.
“We think that these efforts to block the implementation are bogus,” said Lam. “We as a state are wholly within our right and jurisdiction to be able to place limitations on what state and local law enforcement agencies can do. There’s nothing that prevents us from doing so and that’s all it does.
‘Our state taxpayer dollars should not go towards having local law enforcement enforce federal immigration law.”
No, apparently taxpayer dollars should go toward welfare, Medicaid, SNAP benefits and low-income housing for illegal aliens.
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