by
Win
McNamee/Getty
Images)
Donald
Trump
spent
the
four
years
between
his
two
presidencies
filing
garbage
lawsuits.
Hillary
Clinton!
The
Pulitzer
Committee!
Twitter!
No
one
was
immune.
Now
back
in
the
White
House,
President
Trump
is
continuing
the
habit.
Yesterday,
the
Department
of
Justice
sued
the
state
of
Illinois,
Governor
JB
Pritzker,
the
City
of
Chicago,
and
Cook
County
in
a
misbegotten
attempt
to
bully
them
into
becoming
federal
immigration
agents.
The
theory
of
the
case
appears
to
be
that,
because
the
Supremacy
Clause
bars
states
from
creating
their
own
immigration
laws,
it
must
a
fortiari
require
them
to
enforce
federal
immigration
laws.
And
thus
state
and
local
ordinances
that
bar
local
law
enforcement
officers
from
cooperating
with
federal
immigration
officials
are
not
only
bad
public
policy,
but
illegal
and
even
potentially
criminal.
The
government
complains
that
the
state’s
Way
Forward
Act
and
TRUST
Act,
Chicago’s
Welcoming
City
Act,
and
a
similar
Cook
County
municipal
ordinance
“are
designed
to
and
in
fact
interfere
with
and
discriminate
against
the
Federal
Government’s
enforcement
of
federal
immigration
law
in
violation
of
the
Supremacy
Clause
of
the
United
States
Constitution.”
In
reality,
the
laws
bar
local
officials
from
holding
immigrants
on
civil
detainer
warrants
and
from
expending
state
and
municipal
resources
to
detain
immigrants
at
the
request
of
the
feds
absent
a
criminal
warrant.
The
state
laws
are
very
carefully
crafted
to
comply
with
federal
laws,
and
are
not
a
blanket
ban
on
communicating
with
federal
immigration
authorities
—
that’s
why
the
complaint
was
forced
to
say
that
“upon
information
and
belief”
local
cops
are
“confused”
by
the
ordinances
and
“chilled”
from
engaging
in
permitted
communications
with
their
federal
counterparts.
What
they
are
is
a
refusal
to
allow
state
officials
to
be
coopted
into
carrying
out
federal
immigration
law,
as
the
Supreme
Court
has
said
very
clearly
they’re
entitled
to
do.
Just
take
it
from
that
liberal
squish
Justice
Antonin
Scalia,
who
said
in
1997’s
Printz
v.
United
States,
that
the
anti-commandeering
doctrine
barred
the
federal
government
from
forcing
state
law
enforcement
officials
to
run
background
checks
on
gun
purchasers
as
required
by
the
Brady
Bill.
The
Federal
Government
may
neither
issue
directives
requiring
the
States
to
address
particular
problems,
nor
command
the
States’
officers…
to
administer
or
enforce
a
federal
regulatory
program.
It
matters
not
whether
policymaking
is
involved,
and
no
case-by-case
weighing
of
the
burdens
or
benefits
is
necessary;
such
commands
are
fundamentally
incompatible
with
our
constitutional
system
of
dual
sovereignty.
And
so
the
lawsuit
bizarrely
recasts
the
refusal
to
carry
out
federal
policy
with
obstructing
it,
accusing
the
state
of
“obstructing
the
Federal
Government’s
ability
to
enforce
laws
that
Congress
has
enacted
or
to
take
actions
entrusted
to
it
by
the
Constitution.”
It
then
invents
a
new
protected
class
and
accuses
the
state
of
…
discriminating
against
the
feds?
WTF???
So
weird
that
our
new
AG
felt
the
need
to
threaten
“any
attorney
who
because
of
their
personal
political
views
or
judgments
declines
to
sign
a
brief
or
appear
in
court,
refuses
to
advance
good-faith
arguments
on
behalf
of
the
Administration”
with
termination
—
how
else
are
you
going
to
get
line
attorneys
to
sign
off
on
this
shit?
The
DOJ
tried
to
designate
this
case
as
related
to
a
First
Amendment
challenge
to
Trump’s
immigration
executive
order
filed
by
a
coalition
of
nonprofits,
which
would
have
put
them
in
front
of
Judge
John
Kness,
a
Trump
appointee.
But
no
dice
—
the
case
is
in
front
of
Judge
Lindsay
Jenkins,
a
Biden
appointee.
An
initial
status
hearing
is
scheduled
for
April
15.
Liz
Dye lives
in
Baltimore
where
she
produces
the
Law
and
Chaos substack and podcast.