Former President Joe Biden spent four years suing Republican-led states over border crackdowns that defied his federal policy. Now, President Donald Trump is turning the tables — taking sanctuary states and cities to court in an attempt to force compliance with his own federal immigration enforcement.
Last week, the Trump administration filed a lawsuit against Illinois, Chicago, and Cook County, challenging local laws that limit cooperation with federal immigration authorities. The administration argues that these sanctuary policies obstruct federal enforcement efforts and prevent agencies such as U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement from carrying out their duties effectively.
Neama Rahmani, a former federal prosecutor, told the Washington Examiner that sanctuary jurisdictions are at a major disadvantage in this legal battle. “Sanctuary cities have an uphill legal battle stopping Trump or even slowing him down,” Rahmani said. “Some issues like immigration are exclusively controlled by the federal government, so there is little that states can do to slow down (or speed up) immigration enforcement. The conservative Supreme Court handed the Biden administration multiple wins on this issue.”
Rahmani pointed to the Constitution’s supremacy clause, which establishes that federal law overrides conflicting state or local laws. “To the extent that state and federal laws conflict, under the Constitution’s supremacy clause, federal law controls,” he explained. “The blue cities’ best chance of challenging Trump is to argue that a federal law or executive order violates the Constitution, such as birthright citizenship or impoundment.”
Even if cities succeed in court, Rahmani added, Trump still holds significant leverage. “The problem with any legal challenge is that even if it’s successful, Trump and the Republicans in Congress can withhold federal funding to pressure California to bend to their will. The sanctuary cities are in a bad position and have little leverage here.”
In its complaint, the Trump Justice Department pointed to a landmark Supreme Court case that established the federal government’s dominance over states when it comes to immigration.
“Based on its enumerated constitutional and sovereign powers to control and conduct relations with foreign nations, the Federal Government has broad authority to establish immigration laws, the execution of which States cannot obstruct or take discriminatory actions against,” the Justice Department wrote in its complaint, citing the 2012 Supreme Court Arizona v. United States.
The Arizona case affirmed more than a decade ago that immigration enforcement is an exclusively federal function, barring states from enacting laws that directly conflicted with federal priorities. While the decision gave Biden a legal tool to challenge state-led border enforcement efforts, pro-enforcement advocates were unsuccessful with litigation efforts to weaken the reach of the Arizona precedent during his administration, when states including Texas argued they should have greater authority when the federal government refuses to act.
John Yoo, a law professor at the University of California at Berkeley, told the Washington Examiner that Biden’s legal victories reinforced the notion that immigration is solely a federal issue. “In both cases (Biden v. Texas 2022 and United States v. Texas 2023), the courts are policing the line of federal power versus states’ rights in immigration,” Yoo said.
“The question is not the review, but the substance of the law. Here, the law has favored the Obama/Biden approach — in Arizona, the Supreme Court said not only that immigration is a federal issue, but that it is so exclusively federal that states have no authority to enforce it too,” Yoo added.
Now, Trump is testing how far he can push the courts in the other direction, flipping the logic of Arizona against sanctuary jurisdictions. “Biden and Obama used that rule to attack anything states did, like Texas, to enforce immigration law or police the border. Trump can be said to try to extend the rule to require states to help the federal government when it needs it,” Yoo explained.
Biden’s DOJ repeatedly leaned on the Arizona precedent to counter state-led immigration enforcement efforts. In Biden v. Texas (2022), the Supreme Court ruled that Biden’s administration had the authority to terminate the Trump-era Migrant Protection Protocols, also known as the “Remain in Mexico” policy, reinforcing the executive branch’s power to set immigration policy.
A year later, the high court ruled in United States v. Texas (2023) that Texas and Louisiana lacked standing to challenge Biden’s immigration enforcement priorities, allowing his administration to continue its approach to exercising discretion in executing deportations. The ruling emphasized the executive branch’s control over immigration decisions, stating: “In line with those principles, this Court has declared that the Executive Branch also retains discretion over whether to remove a noncitizen from the United States,” again citing Arizona.
If Trump persuades the Supreme Court to revisit Arizona, he could fundamentally reshape the balance of power over immigration enforcement. “I think his chances are quite high that he will win; none of the Justices in that majority are still on the Court,” Yoo noted, “while Republican-appointed members like Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Chief Justice Roberts were in the dissent.”
John Malcolm, vice president for the Heritage Foundation’s Institute for Constitutional Government, told the Washington Examiner that Trump faces different legal obstacles than Biden.
“One advantage Biden had is the Supreme Court’s dreadful decision in Arizona in which the Court held that state officials cannot pass laws that conflict with federal immigration priorities and enforcement efforts,” Malcolm said. “In that case, the state was taking proactive efforts to more rigorously enforce immigration laws that the federal government objected to.”
However, Trump’s attempt to force sanctuary cities into compliance faces hurdles. Hashim G. Jeelani, principal attorney at Jeelani Law Firm, PLC, told the Washington Examiner that the 10th Amendment protects states from being compelled to enforce federal laws, citing Murphy v. NCAA (2018).
“The federal government cannot simply force states to enforce federal immigration laws,” Jeelani argued.
Sanctuary cities are already using that legal argument in their pushback. San Francisco has filed its own lawsuit against the Trump administration, citing Printz v. United States (1997), which held that the federal government cannot commandeer state and local authorities to carry out federal directives. The Supreme Court reaffirmed this principle in City of Chicago v. Sessions (2018), when it ruled that the Trump administration could not withhold certain law enforcement grants from sanctuary jurisdictions without congressional authorization.
Trump’s lawsuit against Illinois signals that this fight is just beginning. Attorney General Pam Bondi has emphasized that more legal challenges are forthcoming against sanctuary jurisdictions that shield illegal immigrants from federal authorities.
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And sanctuary cities are likewise preparing to push back, with legal experts such as Jeelani arguing that Printz and Murphy v. NCAA place limits on what the federal government can demand.
But with a conservative-leaning Supreme Court that has already overturned several long-standing precedents, Trump may see an opportunity to reshape immigration law in his favor.