Justice Department sues Chicago and Illinois over 'sanctuary' laws
JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
The Justice Department today sued the city of Chicago and the state of Illinois over sanctuary laws that limit cooperation with immigration authorities. It is likely the first of many federal lawsuits targeting cities and states that the Trump administration says are blocking immigration officers from doing their jobs. Both Chicago and Illinois are vowing to defend those laws. They argue that they help to build trust with immigrant communities. NPR's Joel Rose is following this, and he joins me now. Hi there.
JOEL ROSE, BYLINE: Hello.
SUMMERS: So, Joel, start with this - what is Trump's Justice Department arguing?
ROSE: The lawsuit accuses Chicago, the state of Illinois and Cook County of, quote, "deliberately impeding," unquote, federal immigration enforcement, which the DOJ contends has resulted in, quote, "countless criminals," unquote, being released into Chicago who should have been held and deported. The lawsuit names both Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and Illinois Governor JB Pritzker in their official capacities. Governor Pritzker today vowed to defend that law in court, saying it has, quote, "always been compliant with federal law and still is today."
SUMMERS: Tell us a little bit more, if you can, about these sanctuary laws that are on the books in Chicago as well as the state of Illinois. What do they say?
ROSE: Yeah. Both the city and the state have these laws that limit how much they cooperate with federal immigration authorities. Chicago has what it calls a Welcoming City ordinance that goes back to 2012 that prevents police from assisting in immigration enforcement or even asking about a person's immigration status in most cases. The Illinois Trust Act was signed in 2017 by a former Republican governor, by the way. Among other things, it prohibits law enforcement in the state from holding someone in custody just because of a request from federal immigration authorities. These laws do make some exceptions for serious crimes and criminal warrants. You know, and they're similar to sanctuary laws in many cities and states, which argue that cooperating with Immigration and Customs Enforcement would undermine trust with immigrant communities because those communities would be less likely to come forward and to report crimes.
SUMMERS: Right. And as many people may recall, the first Trump administration did try to punish sanctuary cities with similar lawsuits. Remind us how that played out.
ROSE: Yes, we have very much seen this before. This lawsuit today is similar to another case against the State of California that the Department of Justice brought back in 2018. Justice Department lawyers back then argued that the state's sanctuary law violated the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution, which gives the federal government clear authority over immigration laws. But California fought that lawsuit and won. They argued that the federal government cannot force local law enforcement to actively assist ICE under the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution, which courts have generally understood to block the federal government from telling states how to manage their police forces. In other words, local police can't interfere with federal law enforcement, but courts have said that simply withholding their cooperation is a very different thing.
SUMMERS: And Joel, didn't the Justice Department also try to withhold funding from sanctuary cities in Trump's first term?
ROSE: Yes, including Chicago, actually - and the Department of Justice lost in many of those cases, too, though I should say not in all of them.
SUMMERS: Right.
ROSE: The second Trump administration is once again threatening to withhold funds. Attorney General Pam Bondi signed a memo just yesterday - her first day on the job - directing the department to end funding to sanctuary jurisdictions.
SUMMERS: OK, last thing - why go after sanctuary cities so hard again? Why does this seem to matter so much to the Trump administration?
ROSE: It may be because these laws are a major obstacle to President Trump's pledge to carry out mass deportations. ICE simply has limited capacity to make arrests and detain people, and officers much prefer to arrest immigrants who are already being held in local jails. That is easier and faster and often safer than arresting people out on the street. And in fact, this is how ICE was able to make so many arrests during the Obama administration, for example, before sanctuary laws were as widespread as they are now. These laws force ICE to spend more time and energy making its own arrests, which is especially inconvenient for the agency now that the White House is pushing to get those arrest numbers up in order to follow through on the president's campaign promises.
SUMMERS: NPR's Joel Rose, thank you.
ROSE: You're welcome.
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