New York is fighting a lawsuit filed by the Trump administration accusing it of “prioritising illegal aliens” over American safety.
New York City should prepare to be hit with one soon.
Gov. Kathy Hochul claims the legal action is a “worthless, publicity-driven lawsuit” that “will be a total failure.”
She insists that New York is “not backing down.”
Hochul is completely wrong about the merits of the lawsuit.
According to the letter of the US Constitution, the Justice Department has a clear advantage.
The state and its top Democrats are being sued over the Green Light Law, which was proposed by Attorney General Letitia James and signed into law by former Gov. Andrew Cuomo in 2019.
It enables illegal immigrants to obtain New York driver’s licenses without fear that federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents will gain access to their personal information.
The law forbids federal officers from accessing the DMV database to view an individual’s photo, address, or immigration status unless they have a warrant or court order.
This is a time-consuming process.
It’s impossible to do during a traffic stop, for instance.
The Green Light Law states that DMV employees “shall,” within three days, notify license-holders when law enforcement views their records, informing them of the investigation and giving them time to flee.
Nineteen states allow illegal immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses, but no other state has such a warning provision. It makes the DMV an accomplice for criminals.
US Attorney General Pam Bondi announced the lawsuit on February 12, standing alongside Tammy Nobles, a “Angel Mom” whose daughter was raped and murdered by an MS-13 gang member in 2022.
Bondi accused New York of purposefully impeding federal efforts to round up and deport criminals such as the man who murdered Nobles’ daughter, in violation of the Constitution’s supremacy clause and a new federal statute.
The Laken Riley Act, which Trump signed last month, requires any illegal alien convicted of theft, burglary, or crimes resulting in death or bodily injury to be detained and deported upon release from prison.
Border czar Tom Homan announced last week that nearly 600,000 illegal immigrants with criminal convictions are currently in the United States.
The new law can only be enforced if ICE is aware that the criminal is being released.
That’s where Bondi steps in.
She has also sued Chicago, Cook County, and the state of Illinois for “affirmatively thwarting” the enforcement of federal immigration law by protecting “countless criminals” who should have been deported.
A long line of Supreme Court litigation states that the federal government cannot “command” state and local employees to do the feds’ jobs for them.
Hochul and Illinois officials are likely to cite these precedents in their defence.
However, Bondi can argue that local and state governments are actively working to defeat federal law, thus violating the supremacy clause, which states that state laws cannot override federal ones.
If Homan is dissatisfied with the cooperation promised by Mayor Eric Adams, New York City will almost certainly face a similar lawsuit.
And Adams is unlikely to deliver.
Homan told me last week that Adams promised not only to provide an ICE “presence” at Rikers Island, but also to do other things that he cannot discuss publicly because the City Council would object.
Give the mayor a medal: His own party is condemning him for cooperating with the Trump administration on immigration enforcement.
But public opinion is completely behind him. According to a Manhattan Institute poll, nearly 72% of New York City residents want the city to assist federal officials in deporting criminally convicted illegal immigrants.
According to ICE, there are over 58,000 illegal migrants on city streets who have been convicted of a felony or face criminal charges.
Nonetheless, New York Democrats are fighting to protect them.
Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez’s office hosted a webinar on how to evade ICE.
City Council members are introducing legislation that would allow New Yorkers to sue any city agency that cooperates with federal immigration enforcement.
Albany lawmakers are proposing legislation to prohibit ICE from entering schools or shelters without a court order.
It’s insane: a cash-strapped state and city risk billions of dollars in federal funds by waging war on the White House while endangering their own citizens.
California Governor Gavin Newsom gets it.
He has promised to cooperate with Trump and veto a state bill that would prohibit prison officials from turning over illegal immigrant criminals to ICE.
New York is not a sovereign nation.
It is part of the United States and needs to behave that way, obeying the US Constitution.
Bondi is delivering that message in court. Voters need to deliver it at the ballot box.
Betsy McCaughey is a former lieutenant governor of New York and co-founder of the Committee to Save Our City .
