Hochul, New York Accused of Aiding Illegal Immigrants With Courthouse Sanctuary Law

A brewing legal battle is unfolding in New York as the federal government pushes back against the state’s restrictions on immigration arrests inside courthouses.

The Department of Justice filed a lawsuit earlier this year targeting New York’s Protect Our Courts Act which prohibits Immigration and Customs Enforcement from detaining illegal immigrants in or around state courthouses. Federal prosecutors argue the law directly conflicts with the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause, which establishes that federal law overrides state statutes.

“These laws pose intolerable obstacles to federal immigration enforcement and directly regulate and discriminate against the Federal Government, in contravention of the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution,” the DOJ alleged in its filing. “Through these enactments, New York obstructs federal law enforcement and facilitates the evasion of federal law by dangerous criminals, notwithstanding federal agents’ statutory mandate to detain and remove illegal aliens.”

The Justice Department insists that courthouse arrests are a critical enforcement tool, allowing ICE to locate individuals already screened for weapons through security and ensuring officer and public safety.

New York officials, however, are seeking to have the lawsuit dismissed. In their motion, they defended the law by arguing that states retain authority to safeguard the operations of their judicial systems.

“No provision of the federal immigration laws evinces the necessary clear congressional intent to displace the State’s sovereign authority to protect the effective operations of its judicial system and its facilities from undue disruption, and to prescribe the duties of its employees,” New York lawyers wrote.

They further pointed to longstanding state protections against civil arrests in courthouses: “As other courts in New York have already concluded, the State’s common law privilege applies with full force to civil immigration arrests, and Congress’s silence as to whether civil immigration arrests may occur in or near state courthouses did not displace these common law protections.”

The dispute highlights New York's priority in protecting illegal migrants and hampering the ability of ICE to operate within the state.

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Hochul, New York Accused of Aiding Illegal Immigrants With Courthouse Sanctuary Law