NEW YORK — The Trump administration lost another round in its legal fight against so-called sanctuary cities late Thursday, when federal Judge Ramón E. Reyes Jr. in Brooklyn threw out the Justice Department lawsuit aimed at striking down New York City rules that limit help for immigration agents.
Reyes, who sits on the federal bench in the Eastern District of New York, found that Washington lacked standing to attack the city ban on holding people for ICE on detainer requests. A state law already blocks that practice, he reasoned, so voiding the city version would not fix the harm the government claimed.
The judge also turned aside the core claim that federal immigration law overrides the city policies. Under the Tenth Amendment, the ruling said, Washington cannot draft local officers and budgets into carrying out its programs, and the government theory amounted to an end run around that limit.
On data sharing, the judge drew a line between immigration or citizenship status, which federal law protects from local gag rules, and details such as when someone leaves jail or where they can be found. The city is not required to hand over the second category, he ruled.
The suit was filed in July 2025. Federal officers have argued that the city rules force them into risky street arrests of people who were once in local custody. Any change, according to the ruling, would have to come from Congress or from state or city lawmakers rather than from a court.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani hailed the decision in a public statement, saying the city would not let its workers be turned into deportation agents and would keep using every available tool to protect residents.
The ruling follows dismissals of similar federal suits against Boston, Los Angeles, Minnesota and Rochester, part of a campaign of more than two dozen cases the administration has brought against state and local governments over sanctuary policies.
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