Trump Lawsuit Backfires in His Face as Judge Rips Him Apart

0:00The war on what Donald Trump likes to refer to as sanctuary cities or states, it's a complete misnomer. They're not providing sanctuary where these people who might have conflicted immigration status are going to be immune from being picked up for federal crimes.

0:16Michael Popok:That's not what's happening with quote unquote sanctuary cities. They're not sanctuary cities or states. They're just making sure that resources in the state are properly devoted to law enforcement and not chasing around other human beings on a civil detainer or arrest order. And that's a choice they make, which they get to make under the dual sovereignty where states have equal sovereignty to the federal government and our system of federalism. And now we got a first order. There's been about a dozen lawsuits filed since day one of the Trump administration to go after primarily blue states and blue cities and blue mayors and blue governors.

0:55Michael Popok:And we have a first ruling coming out of Illinois, the Eastern District of Illinois Federal Court, a major setback for the Trump administration entered by Judge Lindsey Jenkins. I'll cover it right here on Midas Touch and Legal AF because it matters at the intersection of law and politics. What happened? Trump administration filed various lawsuits all over the place. They just filed one about a week or two ago against New York. They filed against New York State, Los Angeles, Colorado, Illinois, New Jersey, certain cities, certain states, claiming that each of those cities or states are issuing orders that prevent state or local municipal personnel from providing information or participating in or assisting.

1:43Michael Popok:federal law enforcement, federal ICE, federal, you know, whatever, immigration officials who want to detain, retain, deport, arrest people. Now, the reality is that's not what these laws do. These laws say there shall be no participation. You shall not commandeer as the federal government, our state officials, and we will not share information with you. Now, if it's a crime and it's crime and punishment, law enforcement, we're all in. But if you're talking about civil enforcement of federal immigration law, do it on your own. Do it yourself. We've got limited resources. We've got limited personnel.

2:23Michael Popok:Our funding has even gotten smaller since the Trump administration's taken over. And this is our policy decision as a state, as to the relationship state and federal. Now, there are laws and Supreme Court rulings going back to the founding of this country, which set up our system of federalism. And under the Tenth Amendment, states have all the power that hasn't been given to the federal government. And while the judge in this case, Judge Jenkins, has pointed out that the federal government and Congress have broad powers. Whatever they want to get involved with and regulate, they can regulate.

3:01Michael Popok:But what they can't do is commandeer, take over, give direct orders to the state officials or municipal officials. That's not allowed in our system of federalism. And it runs both ways under another doctrine that we call intergovernmental immunity. States can't issue orders to federal officers, agents or departments. That's why states can't tax a federal bank like the Federal Reserve in their neighborhood. They can't be taxed by the state. Now, we just saw an aspect of this play out in California over the National Guard, but that deals with an entirely different set, a similar set of laws and regulations about when the National Guard can be commandeered by a federal president, by the president.

3:50Michael Popok:But here, this is different. So Judge Jenkins is the first one in Eastern District of Illinois in a case called U.S. of America, United States of America versus State of Illinois, and the governor and the mayor of Chicago and the rest, all blue. You see where this is going. And she ruled that a number of things. One, she got rid of all, before she dismissed the complaint, she dismissed some of the parties that were sued by Trump. So Pritzker, the governor, a political rival of Trump, the mayor of Chicago, political rival of Trump, have all been dismissed for the case. Then she looked at the complaint itself, the suit, and she said it violates the Tenth Amendment, which empowers the states to be sovereign, dual sovereign with the federal government within their realm.

4:38Michael Popok:And all powers not given to the federal government by Congress or by the Constitution are reserved for the states. That is the foundation of our system of states versus the federal government. Now, we have a president that attacks states' rights. See, Republicans used to be in favor of states' rights. And when they want to be like reproductive rights, they'll say, well, it's not for the federal government. It's for the states. The states need to dictate how they want to handle abortion and women's rights and all of that. It's not a federal issue. It's a state issue. But then when they don't like what the states are doing or they're blue states, they want to embarrass them.

5:16Michael Popok:Then they say, oh, you must follow our commands. We are directing you to provide us all the information we need in order to detain, retain, civil arrest this person in our immigration laws. And that's not how, as Judge Jenkins pointed out, that's not how the laws work. The feds can do it, but the feds cannot command the states and the cities to do their dirty work with them or for them. Again, if it crosses over into a crime, now we're talking about something else. And I think Jenkins makes a very, the judge makes a very good point in the order. And I'll read a couple of passages from it. When the judge says, sanctuary cities is a misnomer.

5:55Michael Popok:Sanctuary implies like you're being chased after by some government official, some prosecutor, some law enforcement, and you run into a church, boom, or some sort of diplomatic post, like a consulate office or an embassy. And you say, I need sanctuary. And the church or the embassy gives you sanctuary and doesn't allow the crime that you've been charged with to be facilitated or executed on their ground. So you get immunity, you get sanctuary. That's not what this is. This is just defining if the state local officials are going to waste their time and money supporting the federal government or the feds are going to have to do it on their own.

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7:36Michael Popok:Donald Trump likes wasting hundreds and thousands and billions of dollars on various things like this plane that he's about to take from Qatar this week and blow all the money to retrofit it in order for him to fly it away as a gift at the end of his term. And all the money he's going to waste up to$400 million on golf trips during this next four years. But he doesn't have the money to devote to his own immigration and immigration policies. I thought that was the big, beautiful bill. I thought that was the billions of dollars making ICE the most heavily funded law enforcement unit in government history, in US history.

8:15Michael Popok:I thought that. And so here's what Jenkins has done. She's just, you know, the judge has dismissed the complaint. They can try to refile. But I think this is a very good blueprint. I'm going to post this on Legal AF Substack. This is a very good blueprint for the other states like New York, which just had a lawsuit filed against it in the Eastern District of New York on the same grounds. And let me just read a couple of pages of it that I think are important here to kind of set the stage. On pages three and four, Judge Jenkins says, Illinois, Cook County and Chicago all pass laws commonly referred to as sanctuary policies, a misnomer recognized by the Seventh Circuit.

8:53While the term signifies a place of refuge or protection, Presence in such localities will not immunize anyone to the reach of the federal government. Viewed together, the Illinois Way Forward Act, which is the law, the Cook County Ordinance, the Cook County Welcoming City Ordinance, prohibit state and local government support of civil immigration activities. This includes complying with detainers, communicating with immigration agents before releasing noncitizens, providing immigration agents access to noncitizens in custody and giving immigration agents information, such as contact information and release dates about noncitizens.

9:32That's what we're talking about. And then if you go to page 16 of this order, I think the judge does a very good job talking about the constitutional principles that are in play. And talks about dual sovereignty. And here's what the judge says about that. When this nation was governed by the Articles of Confederation, it was afflicted by an infamously ineffective central government and fiercely independent union of states. The Constitution rectified these effects, this is on page 16, by crafting a federalist system that would strengthen the federal government by allowing it to legislate upon individuals while preserving the sovereignty of states.

10:14Thus, both the federal government and the states wield sovereign powers, and that is why our system of government is said to be one of dual sovereignty. It's enshrined in the Constitution's text and structure. And then the judge goes on to say about anti-commandeering, federal preemption is also bounded by the anti-commandeering doctrine. Although recognized long after the founding era, anti-commandeering is simply the expression of a fundamental structural decision incorporated into the Constitution, i.e. the decision to withhold from Congress the power to issue orders directly to the states.

10:52centered on the principles of voluntariness, the anti-commandeering doctrine holds that the federal government may not compel the states to enact or administer a federal regulatory program. And that's exactly what the Trump, by his executive order way back on the first day of office, does. It tries to make the states part of the administration of a federal regulatory program. Do it yourself. States are allowed to opt out, in other words. And that's where the sanctuary policy comes from. And this violates the 10th Amendment. So here's what I think is going to happen. This would go up to the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, sort of a moderate middle of the road court of appeals, ultimately to the United States Supreme Court.

11:35Trump will probably wait to see what happens in the other places, like he just filed the case in New York.

11:39Michael Popok:But if I were making a prediction, which I will, New York is going to rule very similar. This Jenkins decision is going to be the blueprint for a lot of states to find and their judges to find against the Trump administration as a setback on their attacks on their political rivals. I'll continue to follow it all right here on Midas Touch. Take a moment, come over and slide over to Legal AF YouTube as well, which I do in collaboration with the Midas Touch Network, and hit the free subscribe button there as well. So until my next report, I'm Michael Popak. Can't get your fill of Legal AF? Me neither.

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