Mamdani welcomes court ruling rejecting Trump administration challenge to NYC sanctuary laws

NEW YORK, CMC – New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has welcomed a federal district court’s ruling dismissing a lawsuit brought by the Trump administration challenging the city’s sanctuary laws for Caribbean and other immigrants.

In his ruling, Judge Ramón Reyes Jr, who was appointed by former President Joe Biden, wrote that the Trump administration lacks standing to bring its 2025 lawsuit claiming New York City’s sanctuary laws are pre-empted by federal law.

“This is a victory for New Yorkers and a rebuke to ICE’s (US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency) deportation agenda,” Mamdani said.

“The federal government came to court seeking to force New York City to turn its public servants into deportation agents and divert our resources towards carrying out ICE’s cruel agenda. Today, they lost.

“The court made clear that the federal government has no standing to bring this case and cannot commandeer our city workers to do its bidding. Our local laws make New York City safer. They allow us to focus our resources on protecting and serving our communities and ensuring that every New Yorker can turn to their city government without fear that asking for help will make them a target for deportation,” he said.

The mayor said that the federal government wanted to use fear to divide the city, adding: “We will not let them. We will continue to uphold our local laws and use every tool at our disposal to protect New Yorkers from ICE’s abuses.

“Our city belongs to all of us, and we will not abandon our neighbours to satisfy an inhumane, xenophobic agenda,” he said.

New York City Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs Commissioner Faiza N. Ali said that, for decades, New York City’s sanctuary laws have helped build trust between immigrant New Yorkers and their local government.

“These local laws are essential to ensuring that all New Yorkers can access critical public services, including healthcare, housing and public education, without fear. At a time when federal immigration enforcement is destabilising and separating families and putting communities across the five boroughs at risk, defending these protections has never been more important.

“Today’s ruling is a win for New York City and immigrant New Yorkers. It affirms our right to determine how to best use resources to serve and protect our communities. The federal government’s attempt to undermine our laws has been rejected, and we will not back down from our commitment to protecting our immigrant neighbours.”

She said her office would “keep working to ensure immigrant New Yorkers know their rights, can access trusted support and have the opportunity to live with safety and dignity”.

President and Chief Executive Officer of the New York Immigration Coalition (NYIC), Murad Awawdeh, whose organisation represents more than 200 immigrant and refugee groups in New York, hailed Judge Reyes for “upholding our constitutional rights and the state’s rights to pass laws that keep our communities safe”.

Awawdeh said Trump’s lawsuit was “a last-ditch attempt to make an end run around the Tenth Amendment”.

He said neither New York City nor New York State would be bullied by the federal government into giving up their rights and protections.

In his ruling, Judge Reyes wrote that “even if the United States has standing — and it does not — its pre-emption claims fail.

“All of the United States’ pre-emption claims — express, conflict and field — fail because the relevant federal statutes do not regulate private actors,” he said, adding that “there is nothing within federal law that obligates states to participate in federal immigration enforcement or compels states to comply therewith.

“The United States’ pre-emption arguments amount to nothing more than a backdoor around the Tenth Amendment and rest on a false distinction between (a) compelling local governments’ participation in federal immigration enforcement and (b) prohibiting local governments from dictating how their personnel and other resources may be utilised towards federal immigration enforcement,” the judge said.

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