No. of Recommendations: 14
The sanctuary states get to go to court and argue why they should be allowed to (best case) passive aggressively stop federal agents from enforcing US federal law.
That's not what they're doing, though. Or at least, nothing in that complaint actually alleges anything like that.
Here's the thumbnail summary of what the complaint alleges in the two main arguments:
1. Federal law bars local governments from preventing people from providing ICE with information on people's immigration status.
2. Illinois is not providing ICE with information on the custody or release date of prisoners.
3. Therefore, IL is violating the federal law.
- and -
4. Detainers are a request - not a demand - for local governments to hold prisoners after release so that ICE can pick them up.
5. Federal law requires, in certain circumstances, that ICE issue detainers for certain types of criminals.
6. Therefore, IL is violating federal law by not agreeing to exercise detainers.
You can see the obvious problems with both those arguments. The first points out correctly that federal law requires people to be able to provide ICE with certain types of information, but then claims IL is violating that law by not providing different types of information - not the information they're required to provide. The second argues that because ICE is required to make a request for detainer in some circumstances, IL is required to follow that detainer - even though following the detainer is not required for states. Just because ICE is required to ask doesn't mean a state is required to say yes.
I mean, it's just bad. It's the sort of lawsuit you file when your client has ordered you to go to court even though you've told them there's no actual case. There's enough handwaving to avoid being sanctioned for a frivolous case, but arguments are just legally weak - they're logically bad.
States are allowed to refrain from helping the federal government enforce federal law. That's not "passive aggressively stopping them" - it's the anti-commandeering doctrine, an important part of federalism that recognizes that the States are not instrumentalities of the federal government. They can't conflict with federal law (the Supremacy Clause), but the federal government doesn't get to make them enact or enforce federal laws.
