NEW YORK (Reuters) -The Trump administration on Thursday sued New York City over local laws that limit cooperation with federal immigration enforcement, saying the statutes unlawfully thwart immigration arrests and conflict with federal immigration law.
In a complaint filed in Brooklyn federal court, the U.S. government said New York City’s “sanctuary provisions” are unconstitutional and preempted by laws giving it authority to regulate immigration.
President Donald Trump, a Republican seeking to deport millions of immigrants in the U.S. illegally, has sparred with New York and other Democratic strongholds over laws limiting cooperation with federal immigration enforcement. Democrats, in turn, have criticized the Trump administration’s aggressive enforcement tactics, including plainclothes immigration agents covering their faces to hide their identities and arrests of immigrants with no criminal records.
The lawsuit cites a recent incident where two migrants in the U.S. illegally allegedly attempted to rob an off-duty customs officer in a city park, shooting him in the face and leg in the process.
“New York City has long been at the vanguard of interfering with enforcing this country’s immigration laws,” the complaint reads. “Its history as a sanctuary city dates back to 1989, and its efforts to thwart federal immigration enforcement have only intensified since.”
The defendants include Mayor Eric Adams, who is seeking reelection in November. The New York City mayor’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In a stunning move, the U.S. Justice Department moved in February to drop corruption charges against Adams, saying the case was making it harder for the mayor to crack down on illegal immigration. The federal judge overseeing the case said in April that the deal “smacks of a bargain.”
Adams, who began his first term in 2022 as a Democrat, plans to run as an independent. He will go up against frontrunner Zohran Mamdani, a liberal Democrat who won the party’s nomination in June.
Trump officials this week ripped Adams during a press conference in the city following the incident injuring the customs officer.
“Start looking at the candidates today and see which one is going to start making the city safer, because you’ve got a mayor today that could have done better,” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said.
In the lawsuit, the U.S. Justice Department said that in fiscal year 2024, New York City jails only honored 4% of federal requests to hold inmates so that they could be picked up for immigration violations.
Prominent Democrats in New York have pushed back on Trump’s immigration crackdown. Federal immigration officers arrested city comptroller Brad Lander in June while he was escorting a defendant out of immigration court and detained him for several hours.
(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York and Ted Hesson in Washington; Editing by Diane Craft)
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