Constitutional scholar Jonathan Turley predicted a “ferocious” legal battle will soon play out between the Trump administration and blue states. Turley reacted on “America’s Newsroom” Thursday to Attorney General Pam Bondi freezing federal funding for sanctuary cities and suing New York over the state’s sanctuary policies.
JONATHAN TURLEY: I think the federal government has a strong case here, particularly with regard to one of the provisions in that law, which is a tip-off provision. And under the law, if the federal government makes an inquiry into a suspected illegal alien, that person is then notified by New York and given a heads-up. And the Feds have said, ‘Well, what are you doing? I mean, we’re making inquiries because we may want to apprehend this person. And you’re giving them a chance to abscond.’ And that’s more than refusing to cooperate with federal enforcement. That’s actually frustrating federal enforcement. So this is going to trigger a ferocious legal battle.
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The state on its side can argue that this violates what’s called the anti-commandeering doctrine. And that’s a line of cases that says that the federal government cannot commandeer or require the state to carry out federal policies or programs. Now, that’s based on states’ rights, but this is a very murky area because, as you can tell from those sound bites, Illinois and New York are actively trying to frustrate federal enforcement and so the federal government is going to court and throwing a flag on this play and saying, you know, you’re not allowed to do that. This is not commandeering. This is obstruction on your part.
The Trump administration has filed a lawsuit against the state of New York and its governor, Kathy Hochul, and Attorney General Letitia James, alleging a failure to comply with federal law by shielding illegal immigrants, Bondi announced Wednesday.
During the news conference, Bondi urged states with sanctuary policies to comply with federal law.
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Also charged is Mark Schroeder, commissioner of the New York Department of Motor Vehicles. Bondi cited New York’s Green Light laws, also known as the Driver’s License Act, which allows illegal immigrants to get a driver’s license. The law also prevents certain federal agencies from accessing New York State’s driver’s license information.
The Justice Department last week asked a federal judge to strike down sanctuary policies in Illinois and Chicago.
“If you don’t comply with federal law, we will hold you accountable,” Bondi said. “We did it to Illinois, strike one. Strike two is New York. And if you are a state not complying with federal law, you’re next. Get ready.”
Turley added on “The Brian Kilmeade Show” that the Trump administration is taking a different approach than the president’s first term.
TURLEY: “The interesting thing about this effort is it’s part of an overall effort to get these issues into court, get judicial review, establish what the navigational beacons are. And going forward, I like that, because this is an administration on a mission. They want to not waste all the time that they saw just burn away in the first term and instead hit the ground running. So they’ve gone on this sort of full assault across the board. They’re virtually inviting people to take them to court and they also have strong arguments.
“We don’t want to sue you. We don’t want to prosecute people. We want people to comply with the law,” Bondi said.
“This is a new DOJ,” the AG continued at the news conference. “New York has chosen to prioritize illegal aliens over American citizens. It stops. It stops today.”
