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The US Department of Justice sued New York City and its mayor Eric Adams over “sanctuary policies” that limit co-operation with federal authorities on immigration enforcement, as the government intensifies deportation efforts.
In a lawsuit filed in Brooklyn on Thursday, federal prosecutors accused the city and several of its officials of seeking “to obstruct federal law enforcement” in violation of the constitution’s Supremacy Clause, which holds that the constitution and federal laws generally prevail over conflicting state laws.
New York City is among Democratic-led sanctuary cities in the US that have pledged to withhold assistance to federal authorities seeking to deport illegal immigrants.
The lawsuit comes despite Adams’s calls for changing the city’s sanctuary laws to allow local law enforcement to notify federal immigration agents when illegal immigrants are arrested for violent crimes.
Shortly after resuming the presidency, Donald Trump’s appointees at the justice department orchestrated the dismissal of a corruption prosecution against Adams, saying he was needed as an ally in the administration’s immigration enforcement plan. But Thursday’s lawsuit suggests Adams’s efforts have fallen short of the administration’s expectations.
“New York City has released thousands of criminals on the streets to commit violent crimes against law-abiding citizens due to sanctuary city policies,” US attorney-general Pam Bondi claimed in a statement on Thursday. “If New York City won’t stand up for the safety of its citizens, we will.”
Kayla Mamelak, Adams’s press secretary, said that while the mayor supports the essence of the city’s laws, he also believed “they go too far when it comes to dealing with those violent criminals on our streets”. She said he has asked the city council to re-examine them, to no avail.
Trump earlier this year declared a national emergency at the country’s southern border with Mexico and pledged to unleash mass deportations, as immigration becomes a critical pillar of his second administration.
This is the latest lawsuit filed by the government against sanctuary jurisdictions, including Los Angeles and Chicago, as well as the states of New York, Colorado and Illinois.
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The lawsuit “seeks to put an end to the efforts of the Nation’s largest City to impede the Federal Government,” according to the complaint.
“New York City’s Sanctuary Provisions have the purpose and effect of making it more difficult for federal immigration officers to carry out their responsibilities in that jurisdiction,” the filing added, resulting “in countless criminals being released into the City who should have been held for immigration removal from the United States”.
Proponents instead argue that “sanctuary policies” help protect immigrants’ rights and contribute to economic prosperity and public safety.