Feds File Three More Suits v. State & Local “Sanctuary” Policies

Michelle Hackman reports for the WSJ:

The U.S. Justice Department filed three lawsuits against California, New Jersey and a Washington county late Monday over their laws and policies limiting local cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, escalating a Trump administration battle against liberal states and localities that adopt so-called sanctuary policies.

Attorney General Bill Barr announced the actions in a speech to the National Sheriffs’ Association on Monday. The suits target New Jersey’s law limiting the information shared with ICE officials on unauthorized immigrants living in the state, as well as a California law banning for-profit immigration detention centers. The lawsuit against King County in Washington targets an executive order the county adopted that bars its airport from being used for deportation flights.

The California suit seems valid on its face. The federal government can make use of facilities three ways: borrow state facilities, hire private ones, or build its own. A state can legitimately choose not to lend its own. Prohibiting private ones leaves the federal government with only the difficult and time-consuming task of building its own. That would inhibit the ability of the government to conduct its operations, and no doubt that was a primary motivation of the California Legislature in passing the law. The situation is quite analogous to the tax on the Bank of the United States enacted by Maryland in the classic case of M’Culloch v. Maryland (1819), in which Chief Justice Marshall thundered “the power to tax involves the power to destroy.”

The airport suit also seems valid. Airports are not just another government-owned facility. The entire field of aviation is pervasively regulated by the federal government. Airports are usually local monopolies; you can’t just take your business to another airport in most cities. Could a local government ban ICE from driving its vehicles on its roads? I doubt that it can ban the federal government from using an airport on the same terms that it is open to everyone else.

The information sharing suit is the toughest one. It is similar to the other United States v. California case now pending certiorari in the Supreme Court, No. 19-532. We are waiting for the high court to say whether it will take that one up.