What Happened
Reuters reported that U.S. District Judge Leo Sorokin threw out the Trump administration's lawsuit challenging Boston's sanctuary-style Trust Act.
The law limits Boston police and other city officials from helping federal authorities conduct civil immigration enforcement, including holding people for possible deportation or sharing personal information. DOJ argued the rules impeded federal immigration enforcement and were preempted by federal law.
Sorokin ruled that DOJ lacked legal standing and had not shown that a ruling against Boston would fix the harms the government claimed. He also pointed to a 2017 Massachusetts high-court ruling that bars state law enforcement from detaining noncitizens solely on a federal civil immigration detainer.
Why This Matters
The federal government can enforce federal immigration law. That does not automatically mean every city police department becomes a deputized extension cord for ICE whenever Washington asks.
Reuters says DOJ has filed around a dozen cases against Democratic-run sanctuary jurisdictions, and Sorokin wrote that the department had so far lost every similar case, with judges tossing four others in Colorado, Illinois and New York. That is not a legal strategy. That is a road trip with the same flat tire in every state.
The Dumb Part With The Authority Homework
The dumb part is suing a city to make police do something state law already says they cannot do, then acting surprised when the judge asks how the court order is supposed to create authority out of fog.
"In Massachusetts, there is simply no source of authority empowering Boston police officers to do what the United States would like them to do," Sorokin wrote, according to Reuters. That sentence is the legal equivalent of pointing at the empty shelf where DOJ hoped the magic permission slip would be.
The Bottom Line
DOJ's Boston sanctuary lawsuit got tossed because the government could not clear basic standing and remedy problems. The real stupid shit is trying to turn local police into federal immigration tools without first checking whether the toolbox is legally allowed to open.