The Justice Department is asking a federal appeals court to revive a lawsuit against Newark, Jersey City, Paterson and Hoboken after a federal judge dismissed the case in June.
NEW JERSEY — The Trump administration is trying to continue its legal fight against four New Jersey cities over policies that limit how much local police cooperate with federal immigration authorities.
The U.S. Department of Justice is appealing a federal judge’s decision that dismissed its lawsuit against Newark, Jersey City, Paterson and Hoboken.
The case began when the Justice Department sued the four cities, arguing that their local “sanctuary” or Community Trust policies interfere with federal immigration enforcement. The policies generally restrict when local police and municipal agencies voluntarily assist ICE and other federal immigration authorities.
DOJ has argued that such policies obstruct enforcement of federal immigration law. The four New Jersey cities are also among the jurisdictions the department has formally identified as sanctuary jurisdictions.
Why did the judge stop the case?
On June 24, U.S. District Judge Evelyn Padin dismissed the federal government’s lawsuit.
But the ruling did not simply declare that every sanctuary policy in the four cities was legal.
Instead, the judge found a fundamental problem with the federal government’s case: even if the court struck down the individual city policies, New Jersey has a separate statewide policy — the Immigrant Trust Directive — that also limits cooperation between state and local law enforcement and federal civil immigration authorities.
In other words, eliminating the rules in Newark, Jersey City, Paterson and Hoboken would not necessarily give the federal government the cooperation it was seeking, because the statewide New Jersey restrictions would still remain.
For that reason, Judge Padin concluded that the federal government had not shown that winning the lawsuit against those four cities would actually solve the problem it claimed to be suffering.
The lawsuit was dismissed without prejudice, meaning the federal government was not permanently barred from trying again.
Now the Trump administration wants the case revived
The Justice Department is now appealing that dismissal.
Put simply, the Trump administration is asking a higher federal court to reconsider Judge Padin’s decision and allow its legal challenge against the four cities to move forward.
The four cities are:
Newark
Jersey City
Paterson
Hoboken
All four have policies limiting voluntary cooperation between local authorities and federal civil immigration enforcement.
What is the dispute really about?
At the center of the case is a larger question that has produced legal battles across the country: Can the federal government force local governments to participate more actively in federal immigration enforcement?
The Trump administration argues that sanctuary policies interfere with federal immigration law and make it harder for ICE to detain and remove people who are subject to immigration enforcement.
Supporters of the New Jersey policies argue that local police should primarily enforce state and local criminal laws rather than act as federal immigration officers. They also say limiting immigration cooperation can encourage immigrant residents to report crimes and cooperate with police without fearing that contact with local authorities will automatically lead to immigration enforcement.
The Justice Department has pursued similar lawsuits against sanctuary jurisdictions around the country and has repeatedly said that challenging these policies is a priority of the Trump administration.
For now, the June ruling remains an important court victory for the four New Jersey cities. But with the Justice Department appealing, the legal fight is not over.
Sources: U.S. Department of Justice, federal court reporting, New Jersey Monitor, Reuters and ACLU-NJ.
By NJ RADAR Team