Federalism When Convenient: The Constitutional Contradictions of an Administration That Claims to Be Traditionalist

The Original States Created a Federal Government of Limited, Delegated Powers. Two Federal Court Decisions Rejecting the Trump Administration’s Challenges to New York’s Sovereignty Expose the Conflict Between Its Professed Constitutional Principles, Its Expansive Litigation Strategy, and the Cost to American Taxpayers.

I. Introduction: Constitutional Traditionalism Cannot Be Selective

The Trump administration has repeatedly presented itself as a defender of traditional American constitutional principles, limited government, and the original understanding of the relationship between Washington and the states. Yet its litigation against New York State and New York City presents a contradiction that deserves considerably more scrutiny than it has received. An administration claiming allegiance to the Constitution’s original design has repeatedly sought judicial intervention to invalidate state and municipal laws that restrict the use of their own governmental institutions, personnel, and resources in federal immigration enforcement.

The contradiction is not merely political. It concerns the very nature of governmental authority under the United States Constitution.

The original thirteen states existed before the present federal government. Through the constitutional ratification process, the people acting in their respective states established a national government and delegated certain enumerated powers to it. The states did not surrender their entire sovereignty, abandon their independent governmental institutions, or agree to become administrative subdivisions of Washington. They retained extensive powers over their internal affairs, including the general police power traditionally exercised through state and local government. The Constitution did not create a national government possessing unlimited authority over every matter affecting the country. It established a federal system in which governmental power was divided, with the federal government’s authority defined by the powers actually delegated to it.

That distinction is fundamental. Yet the administration’s litigation reflects an increasingly familiar assumption that federal executive priorities should prevail whenever state or municipal policies interfere with Washington’s preferred enforcement methods. Under that approach, the federal government does not merely insist upon its authority to enforce federal law. It challenges the ability of state and local governments to determine whether their own employees, facilities, information systems, detention resources, and public funds will be placed at the disposal of federal immigration authorities.

These are not the same questions. The federal government’s constitutional authority to administer immigration law does not automatically confer authority to direct the internal operations of state and municipal governments. Nor does the Supremacy Clause provide the President with an independent reservoir of executive power that expands whenever a state declines to cooperate with federal enforcement priorities.

Two recent federal court decisions involving New York expose the constitutional problem.

On November 17, 2025, United States District Judge Mae A. D’Agostino rejected the federal government’s challenge to New York’s Protect Our Courts Act and related executive orders in United States v. New York, 810 F. Supp. 3d 329 (N.D.N.Y. 2025). That litigation concerned New York’s authority to protect access to its judicial institutions and regulate the participation of state personnel and resources in federal civil immigration enforcement.

The decision was the subject of my November 21, 2025 commentary, When Federal Power Overreaches, Courts Must Draw the Line: What the POCA Decision Means for State Sovereignty and the Future of Government Authority. The central issue was never whether the federal government could enforce constitutionally valid immigration laws. It was whether Washington could invoke its enforcement priorities to override New York’s independent authority to protect the operation of its courts.

Nearly eleven months later, another federal court rejected a related challenge.

On October 15, 2026, United States District Judge Ramón E. Reyes, Jr., dismissed the federal government’s lawsuit against New York City and several municipal officials and agencies in United States v. City of New York, No. 25-CV-04084 (RER) (PK) (E.D.N.Y. Oct. 15, 2026). The administration sought to invalidate provisions of the New York City Administrative Code and an NYPD operations order restricting municipal participation in federal immigration enforcement. The challenged provisions addressed immigration detainers, information sharing, the use of city resources, and the circumstances under which municipal personnel could assist federal immigration authorities.

Judge Reyes rejected the government’s claims on multiple grounds, including the absence of Article III standing, the failure of its preemption theories, and the Tenth Amendment’s prohibition against federal commandeering of state governmental institutions. The Court also rejected the government’s intergovernmental-immunity arguments.

What makes the October 2026 decision particularly consequential is its recognition that invalidating a municipal restriction does not itself create legal authority for municipal officers to perform federal immigration functions. New York law independently limits the circumstances under which local law-enforcement officers may detain individuals solely for civil immigration violations. Removing New York City’s restrictions would not eliminate those independent state-law limitations.

In other words, the federal government sought relief that would not provide the authority it needed.

The administration’s position also presents a broader constitutional concern. If the federal government can prevent states and municipalities from directing how their own personnel and resources are used, the distinction between independent state government and federal administrative machinery becomes increasingly difficult to maintain. The states may formally retain their governmental institutions, but their practical ability to control those institutions would be subject to federal enforcement preferences.

That result would be difficult to reconcile with the constitutional system the administration claims to defend.

The Supreme Court has repeatedly recognized that the federal government cannot compel states to administer federal regulatory programs. In New York v. United States, 505 U.S. 144 (1992), the Court rejected congressional efforts to compel state legislative action. In Printz v. United States, 521 U.S. 898 (1997), it prohibited Congress from conscripting state and local executive officers to implement a federal regulatory scheme. In Murphy v. National Collegiate Athletic Ass’n, 584 U.S. 453 (2018), the Court reaffirmed that Congress cannot evade the anticommandeering doctrine by phrasing an unconstitutional command as a prohibition against state action.

These decisions are not peripheral exceptions to federal authority. They concern the constitutional structure itself.

There is another issue that makes this litigation particularly troubling: the repeated expenditure of taxpayer resources pursuing substantially similar challenges. In a footnote to his October 2026 decision, Judge Reyes identified eleven earlier federal district court decisions rejecting comparable challenges to state and local sanctuary provisions. Although those cases arose under different laws and presented issues requiring individual examination, their collective significance cannot be dismissed.

The Department of Justice possesses considerable litigation resources, but those resources are not unlimited, nor do they exist independently of the taxpayers who finance them. Every federal lawsuit requires attorneys, support personnel, administrative expenditures, and judicial resources. State and local governments defending these challenges also incur expenses ultimately borne by the public. When federal litigation repeatedly encounters established constitutional restrictions, the question is no longer confined to whether the government may file another lawsuit. It becomes a question of institutional judgment, public accountability, and the responsible use of governmental authority.

The administration is entitled to pursue legitimate constitutional disagreements through the courts. But its entitlement to litigate does not insulate its litigation strategy from criticism, particularly when the constitutional theories advanced threaten the independent governmental authority that the Tenth Amendment was designed to preserve.

This commentary therefore examines something more consequential than the outcome of two immigration-related lawsuits. It examines the original distribution of governmental power, the historical expansion of federal authority, and the contradiction between an administration’s professed commitment to constitutional traditionalism and its attempts to subordinate state and municipal independence to federal executive priorities.

The governing question is not whether Washington considers state cooperation desirable, efficient, or politically necessary. It is whether the Constitution grants the federal government the authority it claims.

That question must be answered before executive preference becomes governmental power.

II. The Original States Created the Federal Government, Not the Other Way Around

Any serious examination of federalism must begin with the historical relationship between the states and the federal government. The states were not created by the Constitution of 1787, and their sovereign authority did not originate as a delegation from Washington. The original states emerged from the former British colonies, declared independence, established their own governmental institutions, and participated in the formation of the national political structure that eventually became the United States under the present Constitution.

This history matters because modern discussions of federal supremacy frequently proceed as though the federal government occupies a position of general supervisory authority over the states. That assumption reverses the constitutional relationship. The national government possesses substantial powers within its constitutionally assigned sphere, but those powers exist because they were conferred through the Constitution. The states retain governmental authority not surrendered or otherwise restricted by that constitutional arrangement.

Before the adoption of the present Constitution, the Articles of Confederation established a national framework in which the states retained substantial independent authority. Article II expressly provided that each state retained its sovereignty, freedom, independence, and powers not expressly delegated to the United States in Congress assembled. The Confederation Congress possessed important responsibilities, including matters concerning foreign affairs and collective defense, but it lacked several governmental powers necessary to administer an effective national system. Its inability to regulate interstate commerce comprehensively, raise revenue through independent national taxation, and enforce many of its decisions contributed to the movement toward constitutional reform.

The Constitutional Convention of 1787 responded to those weaknesses. The delegates did not simply preserve the Articles of Confederation. They proposed a fundamentally different national governmental structure, one capable of exercising delegated authority directly over individuals rather than operating principally through requests directed to the states.

That transformation was substantial, but it was not the abolition of state sovereignty.

The Constitution was submitted to specially elected ratifying conventions in the states. Under Article VII, ratification by nine states was sufficient to establish the Constitution among the ratifying states. The legal foundation of the new national government therefore rested upon constitutional ratification by the people acting through their respective state conventions. That distinction is important: the Constitution was not merely an agreement executed by state legislatures, nor was the federal government authorized to establish itself without the ratification process. The people of the states supplied the constituent authority through which the new national structure came into existence.

The resulting government was empowered to perform functions that the earlier Confederation could not effectively accomplish. Congress received enumerated powers concerning taxation, commerce, naturalization, national defense, currency, federal courts, and other matters of national concern. The Constitution established an independent executive branch and a federal judiciary. It also imposed direct restrictions upon the states, including limitations concerning treaties, the issuance of money, and other exercises of governmental authority incompatible with the new constitutional arrangement.

But the Constitution did not transfer the states’ entire governmental authority to Washington. It divided sovereignty between distinct governments, each possessing authority within its constitutional sphere.

That distribution is evident from the language of Article I, Section 1, which vests in Congress the legislative powers granted by the Constitution. The text does not confer a general legislative power over every subject Congress considers important. Article I, Section 8 identifies specific areas in which Congress may legislate. The Necessary and Proper Clause permits Congress to enact legislation carrying those powers into execution, but it does not eliminate the requirement that the governmental objective be connected to a constitutionally delegated authority.

The significance of this structure cannot be overstated. The federal government does not acquire additional constitutional power merely because a national policy would be easier to administer through centralized control. Administrative efficiency may influence how Congress exercises a legitimate power, but it cannot independently establish the existence of that power.

The Tenth Amendment reinforces this principle by reserving powers not delegated to the United States, nor prohibited to the states, to the states or the people. Ratified in 1791 as part of the Bill of Rights, the amendment addressed concerns that the new national government might exercise authority beyond its constitutional limits.

The amendment must be understood as part of the Constitution’s broader structural design. It does not simply preserve a collection of minor governmental functions for the states. It confirms that national authority is delegated rather than unlimited and that the Constitution does not make Washington the repository of every governmental power not expressly assigned elsewhere.

The states retained the general police power governing public health, safety, welfare, and many aspects of economic and social regulation. They also retained responsibility for administering their own governmental institutions, subject to applicable constitutional limitations. State legislatures enact laws addressing innumerable matters of local concern. State courts adjudicate disputes under state law. State and local law-enforcement agencies operate under authority established by their respective jurisdictions. Municipal governments exercise powers conferred upon them by state law.

The fact that municipalities derive their governmental authority from the states is especially important to the present litigation. New York City does not possess the same constitutional sovereignty as New York State. Its powers are derived from state law and the applicable municipal charter framework. Nevertheless, the federal government cannot simply bypass state authority by treating municipal personnel and institutions as resources available for federal direction.

The constitutional limitations on federal commandeering protect the independence of state governmental administration, including the ability of states to establish and control subordinate governmental institutions.

This principle also exposes an important misconception about the Supremacy Clause. Article VI establishes the supremacy of the Constitution, federal laws made pursuant to it, and treaties made under federal authority. It does not declare that every federal administrative preference supersedes state governmental judgment. Federal supremacy presupposes constitutionally valid federal authority. The clause determines the legal priority of federal law within its proper sphere; it does not eliminate the constitutional boundaries defining that sphere.

Indeed, treating the Supremacy Clause as an independent grant of federal power would defeat the very structure it was designed to support. The federal government could invoke national supremacy without first demonstrating a constitutional basis for the governmental action it seeks to impose.

That is not how delegated authority operates.

The constitutional system also requires recognition that state sovereignty is not absolute. The Constitution itself imposes restrictions upon the states, and valid federal law may preempt conflicting state enactments. The Reconstruction Amendments later expanded federal authority to protect individual rights against state infringement. Those amendments are part of the Constitution and cannot be disregarded in the name of an earlier understanding of state sovereignty.

This distinction is particularly significant in civil-rights litigation. State sovereignty does not permit state officials to violate constitutional guarantees, nor does the Tenth Amendment shield state governments from valid exercises of congressional authority under Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment. The same constitutional structure that preserves extensive state authority also establishes enforceable limitations upon governmental misconduct.

The issue, therefore, is not whether state authority invariably defeats federal authority. It is whether the federal government possesses the particular constitutional power it seeks to exercise.

That principle is essential to understanding the administration’s challenges to New York.

The federal government’s authority over immigration and naturalization is substantial. But the existence of national immigration authority does not automatically transform state police officers into federal immigration agents. It does not establish a general presidential power to direct municipal detention facilities. It does not require state governments to allocate their budgets according to federal enforcement priorities. Nor does it permit Washington to dictate every decision concerning the employment, supervision, and official conduct of state and local personnel.

Those governmental resources exist within institutions established and maintained under state authority.

The Supreme Court’s anticommandeering decisions reflect the importance of preserving that distinction. In New York v. United States, the Court recognized that Congress cannot compel states to enact or administer a federal regulatory program. In Printz v. United States, the Court extended that structural protection to state and local executive officers, rejecting the notion that Congress could circumvent limitations on controlling states by issuing commands directly to their employees.

In Murphy v. National Collegiate Athletic Ass’n, the Court rejected another attempted distinction: the suggestion that Congress could prohibit states from adopting certain laws even when it could not affirmatively command them to enact federal preferences. The Court treated both forms of direct command as incompatible with the constitutional allocation of governmental authority.

These cases preserve a meaningful distinction between federal supremacy and federal control of state government.

An administration committed to the original constitutional design should recognize that distinction even when state officials adopt policies it opposes. Constitutional traditionalism cannot mean celebrating state sovereignty when states pursue favored policies while rejecting that same sovereignty when states decline to participate in federal enforcement programs.

The legitimacy of the constitutional structure does not depend upon policy agreement between Washington and the states. Its practical significance becomes most apparent when those governments disagree.

That is precisely the circumstance presented by the administration’s litigation against New York State and New York City.

III. The Historical Expansion of Federal Power Beyond the Original Constitutional Design

The federal government established under the Constitution of 1787 bears little resemblance in size, administrative reach, or regulatory activity to the national government that operated during the early Republic. Over more than two centuries, federal authority has expanded through constitutional amendments, congressional legislation, judicial interpretation, administrative development, and the increasing complexity of national economic and political affairs.

Not every expansion of federal authority has been unconstitutional. Some resulted from express constitutional amendments, while others arose from judicial interpretations of powers already delegated to Congress. The constitutional question is whether those interpretations preserved the distinction between delegated national authority and powers retained by the states.

That distinction has become increasingly difficult to maintain as federal regulation has extended into areas historically administered by state governments.

The development of federal power cannot be understood without examining the Commerce Clause, Necessary and Proper Clause, and Spending Clause. These provisions have supplied much of the constitutional foundation for the modern administrative state. Their interpretation has also generated recurring disputes over whether Congress is exercising powers conferred by the Constitution or relying upon increasingly expansive theories of national authority.

The Necessary and Proper Clause provides an early example. In McCulloch v. Maryland, 17 U.S. (4 Wheat.) 316 (1819), the Supreme Court upheld Congress’s authority to establish a national bank as an appropriate means of exercising its enumerated constitutional powers. Chief Justice John Marshall rejected the proposition that Congress could employ only those instrumentalities absolutely indispensable to accomplishing an expressly delegated function.

The decision recognized implied congressional powers, but it did not hold that the federal government possessed unrestricted authority. The means selected by Congress still had to advance a legitimate constitutional objective and remain consistent with the Constitution. Federal legislation could not derive its validity from governmental convenience alone.

Nevertheless, McCulloch established a consequential interpretive principle: Congress could exercise authority not expressly identified in the constitutional text when that authority was sufficiently connected to an enumerated power. The scope of that connection would become a recurring source of constitutional controversy.

The Commerce Clause presents an even more significant example of the expansion of federal authority.

Article I, Section 8 empowers Congress to regulate commerce with foreign nations, among the several states, and with Indian tribes. That provision was designed, in substantial part, to address weaknesses under the Articles of Confederation, including the inability of the national government to regulate interstate commercial relationships effectively.

Over time, however, judicial interpretations expanded the category of economic activity Congress could regulate.

In Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U.S. 111 (1942), the Supreme Court upheld the application of federal agricultural production restrictions to wheat grown for personal consumption. Although the farmer’s individual activity was local and the wheat was not intended for interstate sale, the Court reasoned that the cumulative effect of comparable activity could substantially influence interstate commerce.

The constitutional significance of Wickard extends beyond agricultural regulation. By permitting Congress to consider the aggregate effects of local economic conduct, the decision substantially expanded the practical reach of federal legislative authority. Activities traditionally regulated within individual states became subject to national control when their collective economic consequences were sufficiently connected to interstate commerce.

That reasoning provided a foundation for extensive federal economic regulation during the twentieth century.

The Court later reaffirmed broad congressional commerce authority in Gonzales v. Raich, 545 U.S. 1 (2005), upholding federal regulation of locally cultivated marijuana intended for personal medical use despite California’s contrary regulatory framework. The decision recognized Congress’s authority to regulate intrastate activity as part of a comprehensive federal regulatory scheme governing an interstate market.

These decisions illustrate how the Commerce Clause developed from a power addressing interstate commercial relationships into a constitutional basis for regulating certain forms of local economic conduct.

But the expansion has not been unlimited.

In United States v. Lopez, 514 U.S. 549 (1995), the Supreme Court invalidated the federal Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990 because the statute exceeded congressional authority under the Commerce Clause. The Court rejected the government’s attempt to connect firearm possession near schools to interstate commerce through an extended series of economic consequences.

The decision was significant because it recognized that accepting every attenuated connection between local conduct and national economic activity would effectively eliminate the distinction between federal and state legislative authority. If Congress could regulate any activity merely because that activity might ultimately influence the national economy, the enumeration of federal powers would lose much of its limiting function.

A comparable concern appears in the Supreme Court’s Spending Clause jurisprudence.

Congress possesses authority to tax and spend for the general welfare, and federal financial assistance has become an important instrument through which Washington influences state governmental policy. Instead of directly requiring states to adopt particular laws, Congress may attach conditions to the receipt of federal funds.

In South Dakota v. Dole, 483 U.S. 203 (1987), the Supreme Court upheld a federal law conditioning a portion of federal highway funding upon adoption of a minimum drinking age of twenty-one. The Court recognized Congress’s ability to encourage state policy choices through financial incentives, subject to constitutional limitations.

The distinction between encouragement and coercion is essential. When a state voluntarily accepts federal financial assistance under constitutionally permissible conditions, the resulting relationship differs from an outright federal command. But when the threatened financial consequences become so severe that the state has no meaningful choice, conditional spending begins to resemble the very commandeering that the constitutional structure prohibits.

The Supreme Court confronted that problem in National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius, 567 U.S. 519 (2012). In addressing the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion, the Court determined that Congress could not condition a state’s continued receipt of its existing Medicaid funding upon acceptance of the expanded program in a manner that crossed the constitutional line between financial inducement and coercion.

The decision recognized the practical danger of allowing Washington to use its financial resources to accomplish indirectly what it could not constitutionally command directly.

That concern is particularly significant because federal funding has become deeply integrated into state governmental operations. States administer extensive programs involving public health, education, transportation, public assistance, and other governmental responsibilities with varying degrees of federal financial participation. The resulting relationship may create substantial practical pressure to conform state policies to federal objectives, even where the underlying subject remains one of traditional state concern.

The constitutional question is not whether federal funding conditions are categorically improper. It is whether they preserve the independent governmental judgment that distinguishes a sovereign state from an administrative department carrying out federal instructions.

The Supremacy Clause presents a related concern, although its constitutional function is different.

Federal supremacy is essential to maintaining a functioning national government. When Congress validly exercises delegated authority, conflicting state laws may be displaced. But the existence of federal supremacy cannot be used to avoid the preliminary inquiry into whether Congress possessed the authority to legislate in the first instance.

Nor can executive enforcement policy substitute for valid federal law.

This is the point at which the historical expansion of federal authority intersects with the Trump administration’s litigation against New York.

The administration’s principal argument has been that New York’s restrictions interfere with the enforcement of federal immigration law. But identifying an interference with federal policy does not, by itself, establish unlawful state conduct. The Constitution does not guarantee that every federal enforcement objective will be implemented through the cooperation of state and municipal institutions.

A federal enforcement program may become more expensive, administratively difficult, or operationally demanding because state officials decline voluntary participation. Those consequences do not automatically confer additional authority upon Washington.

The constitutional system anticipates that federal and state governments will sometimes pursue different policies. Indeed, divided sovereignty would have little practical meaning if the federal government could eliminate state independence whenever disagreement increased the cost or difficulty of national enforcement.

The Supreme Court’s anticommandeering jurisprudence responds to precisely that danger.

In New York v. United States, the Court rejected a federal statutory provision that effectively required states to take responsibility for radioactive waste under circumstances inconsistent with the constitutional distribution of governmental authority. The decision explained that Congress may regulate individuals directly within the scope of its delegated powers, but it cannot simply compel states to enact or administer a federal regulatory program.

Five years later, Printz v. United States addressed federal legislation requiring state and local chief law-enforcement officers to conduct background checks under the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act. The Supreme Court held that Congress could not compel those officers to execute federal regulatory responsibilities.

The constitutional principle was not dependent upon the desirability of background checks or the importance of firearm regulation. The question was whether Congress could require state executive officers to perform federal administrative functions.

In Murphy v. National Collegiate Athletic Ass’n, the Court reaffirmed this limitation while considering a federal statute restricting state authorization of sports gambling. The Court rejected the notion that a congressional prohibition directed at state legislative action was constitutionally different from an affirmative command requiring state legislation.

That distinction is directly relevant to the federal government’s position in the New York City litigation. The administration argued that it was not attempting to require New York City to participate affirmatively in federal immigration enforcement. Rather, it sought to invalidate municipal restrictions that prevented city agencies and personnel from providing certain forms of cooperation.

But the constitutional consequences of that position cannot be evaluated simply by accepting the government’s characterization of the relief requested.

If Washington can prevent a state or municipality from directing how its own employees perform their official duties, the federal government gains substantial influence over the state’s internal administrative decisions. The fact that the federal government describes its intervention as removing an obstacle rather than compelling participation does not necessarily resolve the constitutional problem.

Judge Reyes confronted that distinction in the October 2026 litigation. The Court determined that the federal government’s claims threatened to circumvent the Tenth Amendment by interfering with New York City’s authority to control its personnel and resources. That reasoning is particularly significant because it examines the practical institutional consequences of the requested relief rather than accepting the government’s preferred description of its litigation strategy.

The broader historical lesson is that federal power has expanded through multiple constitutional mechanisms, but those mechanisms remain subject to structural limitations. The Commerce Clause does not confer a general federal police power. The Necessary and Proper Clause does not authorize governmental action disconnected from delegated authority. The Spending Clause does not permit unlimited financial coercion. And the Supremacy Clause does not transform federal executive priorities into commands that state governments must obey.

This is where claims of constitutional traditionalism must be subjected to serious examination.

An administration cannot meaningfully embrace limited federal government while disregarding the limits that become inconvenient to its preferred enforcement policies. Nor can it invoke the constitutional structure as a justification for restraining federal authority in one context while seeking broader federal control over state institutions in another without explaining the constitutional distinction.

There may be legitimate circumstances in which state legislation conflicts with valid federal law, and federal courts possess authority to resolve those conflicts. But the federal government’s burden is to identify the constitutional and statutory basis for its claimed authority. It cannot presume that state independence becomes unlawful simply because it complicates enforcement of federal policy.

The historical expansion of federal authority has made that inquiry more important, not less.

As national governmental institutions have grown, the practical opportunities for federal intrusion into traditional state functions have increased. The constitutional restraints preserving state sovereignty therefore remain essential to preventing governmental power from accumulating without meaningful institutional boundaries.

The administration’s repeated challenges to New York’s immigration-related laws must be examined against that constitutional history.

The issue is not whether the federal government possesses substantial immigration enforcement powers. It plainly does. The issue is whether those powers extend to controlling how states and municipalities organize their own institutions, supervise their employees, allocate public resources, and decide whether to participate voluntarily in federal enforcement operations.

That is the distinction between enforcing federal law and exercising federal control over state government.

It is also the distinction that the administration’s litigation repeatedly places before the federal judiciary.

IV. The First Judicial Rejection: The Federal Government’s Failed Challenge to New York’s Protect Our Courts Act

The administration’s unsuccessful challenge to New York’s Protect Our Courts Act was significant not simply because another federal district court rejected its position, but because of what the government attempted to accomplish through the litigation. Rather than identify a specific congressional command requiring New York to abandon its courthouse protections, the Department of Justice advanced a theory of federal preemption that would have substantially diminished the state’s ability to regulate activities affecting its own judicial institutions. The litigation placed the administration’s immigration enforcement objectives against New York’s responsibility to maintain the accessibility, independence, and orderly operation of its courts.

The distinction matters because the government was not confronting a state statute purporting to nullify federal immigration law. New York had adopted restrictions governing civil immigration enforcement in circumstances implicating state courthouse operations. Those restrictions reflected a legislative determination that courthouse access should not be compromised by enforcement practices discouraging individuals from appearing in judicial proceedings. The federal government’s disagreement with that determination did not establish that the Legislature had exceeded its authority.

The administration nevertheless sought to invalidate the protections through litigation rather than demonstrate that Congress had expressly displaced the state’s authority to establish them. That choice framed the dispute as a constitutional confrontation over preemption rather than a straightforward question of whether federal immigration officers possessed lawful authority to enforce federal immigration statutes.

The Government’s Preemption Theory and Its Missing Statutory Foundation

The central deficiency in the federal government’s challenge was its inability to establish the statutory conflict necessary to invalidate POCA. The administration relied upon the Immigration and Nationality Act as the foundation for its position, arguing that New York’s restrictions interfered with federal immigration enforcement. But the existence of a comprehensive federal immigration framework did not resolve the specific question presented: whether Congress had displaced state authority to regulate civil arrests affecting access to state judicial proceedings.

Judge D’Agostino’s analysis required the government to identify something more substantial than the general proposition that immigration enforcement falls within federal jurisdiction. The administration needed to establish how POCA conflicted with a legally controlling federal requirement. Its position depended upon treating restrictions on the location and circumstances of certain enforcement activities as equivalent to restrictions upon the federal government’s underlying jurisdiction.

Those propositions are not interchangeable.

The federal government can possess jurisdiction to enforce a particular statute without possessing an unrestricted entitlement to conduct every authorized enforcement activity in every setting, irrespective of otherwise applicable law. The question in the POCA litigation concerned the legal relationship between federal immigration enforcement and New York’s courthouse protections, not the existence of federal immigration authority in the abstract.

The administration’s difficulty was particularly evident in its reliance upon Congress’s supposed intent to displace state regulation. Preemption requires an identifiable legal foundation. The executive branch cannot supply missing congressional intent simply by asserting that enforcement would be more effective without the challenged state restrictions.

That is the point at which the government’s legal theory encountered its most significant weakness. If federal statutory silence concerning a particular state protection were sufficient to establish preemption, Congress would not need to address the protection at all. Federal agencies could instead claim that any state restriction affecting their preferred enforcement methods conflicted with the general objectives of the broader statutory scheme.

Such reasoning would transfer substantial responsibility for defining the reach of federal law from Congress to the executive agencies implementing it.

The administration’s challenge to POCA therefore implicated more than a disagreement over where immigration arrests should occur. It tested whether an agency’s interpretation of its enforcement responsibilities could effectively enlarge the preemptive consequences of federal legislation without a corresponding congressional directive.

The district court rejected the government’s attempt to establish that displacement.

The Executive Orders Presented a Separate Institutional Problem

The administration also challenged Executive Orders 170 and 170.1, issued during Governor Andrew Cuomo’s administration. Those directives addressed the participation of state agencies and personnel in federal civil immigration enforcement.

Their inclusion in the lawsuit expanded the controversy beyond courthouse arrests. The government was also challenging New York’s decisions concerning the official activities of individuals employed within its executive agencies.

That aspect of the case deserves separate attention because the challenged directives concerned the state’s management of its own workforce. A state agency’s decision not to deploy employees for federal civil immigration enforcement is materially different from a state attempting to prohibit federal officers from performing functions authorized by federal law.

New York’s executive directives established restrictions upon its personnel. The federal government sought to remove those restrictions because they limited opportunities for cooperation with immigration authorities.

The government’s position thus depended upon the proposition that federal enforcement interests could override state rules addressing the use of state employees, notwithstanding the absence of a general obligation requiring those employees to administer federal immigration law.

That is a substantial claim of governmental authority. It is not rendered less consequential merely because the requested relief was framed as invalidating restrictions rather than ordering affirmative participation.

The litigation required the court to evaluate the legal effect of the challenged directives, not simply accept the administration’s characterization of them as obstacles to immigration enforcement.

Judge D’Agostino’s dismissal left those state protections intact. The decision did not eliminate federal immigration enforcement authority. It rejected the particular legal grounds advanced for displacing New York’s restrictions.

The Distinction Between a Litigation Defeat and a Policy Disagreement

The administration’s dissatisfaction with New York’s policies was not itself unlawful. Federal officials may criticize state legislation, advocate changes in national immigration policy, request cooperative arrangements, and seek judicial relief when a genuine conflict with federal law exists.

But litigation imposes obligations different from those governing political advocacy.

A complaint must identify a legally cognizable claim. A preemption challenge must establish the relevant conflict. A request for judicial relief must rest upon governing law rather than the executive branch’s assessment that another government has adopted an undesirable policy.

Those requirements are particularly important when the federal government seeks to invalidate legislation enacted by another sovereign.

The POCA litigation revealed the consequences of failing to distinguish policy opposition from a legally sufficient basis for judicial intervention. The administration opposed New York’s restrictions because they complicated aspects of federal immigration enforcement. But that operational consequence did not establish that the restrictions were constitutionally prohibited.

The decision also demonstrated that state sovereignty is not suspended merely because federal officials characterize a state policy as an impediment. Courts remain responsible for examining the actual legal relationship between the challenged enactment and the federal authority invoked against it.

My November 2025 commentary addressed the importance of that decision to judicial independence and the preservation of courthouse access. The subsequent litigation against New York City presents a different concern. There, the federal government’s requested relief encountered not only substantive constitutional objections but a threshold defect in the government’s ability to establish that its lawsuit could remedy the injuries it alleged.

That distinction makes the second decision particularly revealing from a litigation standpoint.

V. The Second Judicial Rejection: A Federal Complaint Defeated by Its Own Legal Deficiencies

The October 15, 2026 decision in United States v. City of New York deserves examination principally because Judge Reyes identified multiple, independent defects in the Department of Justice’s legal theories. The opinion was not confined to an abstract disagreement over the Tenth Amendment. It exposed fundamental problems involving Article III jurisdiction, the scope of the federal statutes invoked, the distinction between municipal regulations and federal immigration operations, and the remedies the government requested.

Those deficiencies matter because they implicate decisions made before the litigation reached the court. The federal government selected the challenged provisions, formulated its causes of action, identified the relief it wanted, and defended those positions after New York City moved to dismiss. The resulting opinion permits an examination of whether the government’s litigation theory adequately accounted for the legal barriers already governing the conduct it sought to facilitate.

The Redressability Problem Should Have Been Apparent Before Filing

The most consequential defect arose from the relationship between New York City’s municipal restrictions and New York State law.

The Department of Justice challenged municipal provisions limiting compliance with federal civil immigration detainers and administrative warrants. It argued that those restrictions interfered with immigration enforcement by preventing local officials from maintaining custody of individuals sought by federal authorities.

The government requested an injunction invalidating the challenged provisions.

But invalidation of a municipal restriction does not necessarily authorize conduct that independent state law prohibits.

That was the problem Judge Reyes identified. Under People ex rel. Wells v. DeMarco, 168 A.D.3d 31, 34, 88 N.Y.S.3d 518 (2d Dep’t 2018), New York law does not authorize state or local law-enforcement officers to arrest or detain individuals solely for civil immigration violations pursuant to federal administrative detainers. Even without the challenged municipal provisions, those officers would remain subject to the controlling limitations established by state law.

The requested injunction therefore could not accomplish the government’s asserted objective. The Court could eliminate a municipal restriction without supplying affirmative authority for the detention the federal government wanted local officers to perform.

This was not an incidental weakness in an otherwise complete legal theory. It defeated redressability, an indispensable element of Article III standing.

The significance is difficult to overlook. The federal government pursued a lawsuit challenging New York City’s limitations on conduct that remained independently restricted under New York law. The resulting relief could not place municipal officers in the position the government sought because the City itself was not the source of the missing authority.

That raises an elementary litigation question: what legally effective relief did the Department of Justice expect the district court to provide?

The answer required more than invalidating the municipal law. It required addressing the independent state-law framework controlling local detention authority. The federal complaint did not overcome that obstacle.

Judge Reyes identified the possibility of legislative action as a means of addressing the legal authority the government sought. The New York Legislature could authorize additional conduct by state and local officers, or Congress could enact legislation concerning the relevant authority, subject to applicable constitutional restrictions.

Neither possibility empowered the district court to supply missing authority through an injunction against New York City.

The distinction illustrates the practical limits of judicial relief. A federal court is not a substitute legislature, and a judicial declaration that a municipal law is invalid cannot independently create powers that applicable law does not confer.

The Government’s Information-Sharing Theory Conflated Different Categories of Information

The Department of Justice encountered another problem when attempting to establish that the City’s restrictions violated federal immigration-status information-sharing statutes.

The government relied upon 8 U.S.C. §§ 1373 and 1644, which address governmental restrictions involving information concerning citizenship or immigration status. Its arguments sought to connect those provisions to municipal limitations on release information and other records relevant to immigration enforcement.

Judge Reyes rejected the government’s interpretation.

The statutory language concerns information about a person’s citizenship or immigration status. That legal classification is not equivalent to a person’s release date, court appearance schedule, incarceration status, or physical location.

Those distinctions are not semantic technicalities. They determine the actual scope of the federal statutes upon which the government relied.

A release date may be useful to immigration authorities seeking to apprehend an individual. The individual’s location may be operationally important. Custody information may assist officers in coordinating enforcement activities. But usefulness to an agency does not transform every category of personal information into immigration-status information within the meaning of a federal statute.

The Court also examined the City’s statutory exceptions, including provisions permitting disclosures required by federal law. Those exceptions undermined the government’s assertion that the challenged municipal restrictions prohibited conduct protected by the cited federal statutes.

The resulting defect concerned causation. The government had not shown that the alleged statutory injury was fairly traceable to provisions that, on their face, preserved the relevant federally protected disclosures.

This portion of the decision exposes the danger of allowing an agency’s operational interests to determine statutory meaning. The Department of Justice attempted to obtain protections for categories of information extending beyond those expressly addressed by the statutory language relied upon in its complaint.

The court declined to accept that enlargement.

The Preemption Arguments Failed Because the Government Targeted Municipal Administration

The administration’s express, field, and conflict preemption theories were independently rejected.

The critical deficiency was the government’s treatment of municipal administrative restrictions as though they necessarily constituted competing immigration regulation.

New York City’s challenged provisions concerned decisions about municipal custody, agency cooperation, information disclosure, and allocation of local resources. The federal government argued that those restrictions interfered with the national immigration system.

But the Court distinguished federal regulation of immigration from municipal decisions governing the City’s participation in federal enforcement.

That distinction undermined the government’s contention that the City had invaded a field reserved to federal authorities. New York City had not established an alternative national immigration classification system or attempted to adjudicate immigration status under competing local standards. Its provisions determined when municipal agencies would provide assistance or resources.

The conflict preemption theory encountered a similar deficiency. The government identified ways in which the City’s policies complicated enforcement, but those difficulties did not establish the type of legal incompatibility necessary to displace the challenged provisions.

The Court’s analysis required more than allegations of administrative inconvenience. The government needed to demonstrate that the actual operation of the municipal provisions produced a legally sufficient conflict with federal law.

It failed to do so.

The express preemption theory also lacked the statutory foundation necessary to invalidate the challenged restrictions. The federal information-sharing provisions did not provide the sweeping displacement of municipal administrative policies that the Department of Justice sought.

These conclusions are important because they identify separate failures in the government’s legal presentation. The administration did not simply advance one argument that the court rejected. It pursued alternative theories of preemption, each of which failed when measured against the statutes and municipal provisions actually at issue.

The Intergovernmental-Immunity Argument Presented Another Deficiency

The government’s reliance upon intergovernmental immunity produced no better result.

The administration contended that New York City’s restrictions directly regulated federal operations and discriminated against the federal government. The Court examined those theories separately.

On direct regulation, Judge Reyes considered the practical operation of the challenged provisions and declined to characterize municipal restrictions on local cooperation as direct federal regulation merely because they affected immigration enforcement.

The challenged rules principally concerned municipal institutions and the conduct of municipal personnel. The government had not established that the City was exercising regulatory authority over federal immigration officers themselves in the manner necessary to sustain its claim.

The discrimination theory failed for an additional reason: the absence of an appropriate comparator.

The intergovernmental-immunity doctrine prohibits certain discriminatory treatment of the federal government or those with whom it deals. Establishing that form of discrimination generally requires identifying comparable entities receiving more favorable treatment.

The Department of Justice could not identify a similarly situated nonfederal entity conducting comparable immigration enforcement operations that New York City treated more favorably.

The government argued that its exclusive responsibility for immigration enforcement supported its claim. But exclusivity did not eliminate the requirement to establish the discriminatory treatment alleged.

The Court rejected the attempt to transform the absence of a comparable nonfederal entity into proof that discrimination existed.

What the Multiple Failures Reveal

The cumulative significance of the October 2026 decision lies in the number and character of the deficiencies identified.

The government sought relief that would not overcome independent state-law restrictions. It interpreted immigration-status information provisions to encompass categories of information outside their recognized scope. It advanced preemption theories without establishing the necessary statutory displacement or conflict. And it pursued intergovernmental-immunity claims without demonstrating the direct regulation or comparative discrimination required by the doctrine.

These were distinct legal deficiencies arising from the government’s own litigation positions.

The Court’s opinion also addressed the constitutional limitations on commandeering local governmental institutions. But the case did not depend exclusively upon that doctrine. Judge Reyes identified alternative reasons the federal government’s claims could not succeed.

That is what separates the decision from an ordinary constitutional disagreement in which opposing parties present plausible interpretations of unsettled doctrine and a court selects one over the other.

Here, the government’s claims encountered obstacles involving both the requested remedy and the legal reach of the statutes invoked.

The distinction deserves serious attention when assessing the Department of Justice’s litigation strategy. The federal government possesses considerable legal expertise and institutional resources. Its attorneys are expected to evaluate jurisdictional requirements, governing precedent, statutory language, and the practical effect of requested relief before invoking the authority of a federal court.

The opinion does not establish that government counsel acted in bad faith, nor does it determine why the administration elected to pursue the complaint. But it provides a substantial basis for scrutinizing the legal judgment underlying the litigation.

A court’s rejection of a governmental lawsuit is not, by itself, evidence of improper motives. Repeated pursuit of comparable claims, however, requires examination of the legal theories advanced, the grounds upon which earlier courts rejected them, and whether subsequent litigation meaningfully addresses those deficiencies.

Judge Reyes’s identification of eleven earlier district court decisions rejecting similar challenges makes that inquiry unavoidable.

VI. The Administration’s Litigation Strategy: What the Repeated Defeats Actually Establish

The significance of the POCA litigation and the New York City litigation becomes clearer when the cases are examined as components of a broader federal enforcement strategy rather than as isolated constitutional disputes. The two lawsuits challenged different legal protections and presented distinct questions. Nevertheless, both involved efforts to invalidate state or municipal restrictions affecting the administration’s preferred methods of conducting federal civil immigration enforcement.

The common feature was the government’s attempt to obtain judicial relief against laws governing institutions outside its direct administrative control.

In the POCA litigation, the administration challenged protections associated with access to New York’s courts and restrictions governing state-agency participation. In the New York City litigation, it challenged municipal rules affecting detention, information sharing, and the deployment of local personnel and resources.

The legal mechanisms differed, but the institutional objective was similar: remove restrictions adopted by state or municipal authorities that limited opportunities for cooperation with federal immigration enforcement.

This comparison warrants scrutiny because it reveals how the administration has used litigation to contest not only the substance of state policy but also the authority of state and local governments to control their own administrative participation.

Litigation as an Instrument of Federal Enforcement Policy

There is nothing inherently improper about the Department of Justice challenging state legislation it considers unconstitutional. Federal courts regularly resolve disputes concerning the division of governmental authority, and the federal government must have access to judicial remedies when state action unlawfully interferes with valid federal functions.

The concern arises when the government’s litigation strategy appears to treat adverse state policy decisions as presumptively susceptible to federal preemption rather than requiring a careful determination of whether the particular state law actually conflicts with governing federal authority.

The distinction affects the nature of the legal claims selected and the remedies requested.

In both New York cases, the administration’s enforcement interests provided the practical motivation for seeking relief. State or municipal restrictions made certain federal enforcement activities less convenient or reduced opportunities for cooperation. The government responded by seeking judicial invalidation of those restrictions.

But litigation cannot eliminate the need to establish the source and scope of the authority being asserted.

In the POCA dispute, the government was required to demonstrate that federal law displaced New York’s courthouse protections. In the municipal litigation, it was required to establish that the challenged provisions caused legally cognizable injuries and that invalidating those provisions would provide effective relief.

Those requirements were not interchangeable. Each case demanded an analysis tailored to the specific provisions challenged and the particular relief requested.

The district courts’ decisions show the consequences of failing to satisfy those separate legal burdens.

The Difference Between Removing an Obstacle and Obtaining Legal Authority

The New York City decision identifies a particularly important limitation on the administration’s approach.

The federal government repeatedly characterized state and municipal restrictions as obstacles to immigration enforcement. But removing an obstacle does not necessarily establish the affirmative legal authority necessary to perform the underlying governmental act.

That is precisely what the Article III standing analysis demonstrated.

The federal government could not convert the invalidation of a municipal ordinance into independent authority for local officers to execute civil immigration detention requests contrary to applicable New York law.

The distinction has implications beyond the particular statutory provisions challenged. It demonstrates that litigation directed at the most visible policy restriction may accomplish nothing if the underlying legal authority remains absent.

A governmental plaintiff pursuing injunctive relief must identify not only what it wants invalidated but also how the requested judicial order would legally remedy the asserted injury.

In the October 2026 case, the administration’s position failed that inquiry.

The government was therefore asking the judiciary to remove a municipal restriction without establishing that removal would permit the conduct it sought to facilitate. That deficiency raises a legitimate question about the relationship between the administration’s litigation objectives and the remedies its lawyers selected.

The federal judiciary does not possess authority to reconstruct statutory arrangements merely because the resulting framework would better serve an executive enforcement program.

What Eleven Earlier Decisions Mean for Litigation Judgment

Judge Reyes’s opinion identified eleven earlier federal district court decisions rejecting comparable challenges to sanctuary provisions. Those decisions involved different jurisdictions, statutory frameworks, and allegations. They cannot responsibly be treated as though every complaint, legal theory, and requested remedy were identical.

Nevertheless, their collective existence is significant.

By October 2026, the Department of Justice had encountered a substantial body of adverse district court decisions addressing the constitutional and statutory limitations upon compelling or facilitating state and local participation in federal immigration enforcement.

That litigation history creates an important distinction between advancing a legal theory in the first instance and continuing to pursue related theories after multiple courts have rejected them.

An adverse district court decision does not necessarily establish controlling law in another jurisdiction. The government may reasonably preserve arguments for appellate review, distinguish different statutory provisions, or seek resolution of conflicting judicial interpretations. Those are legitimate functions of litigation.

But the existence of possible appellate review does not eliminate the responsibility to evaluate whether subsequent complaints adequately address the deficiencies identified in earlier decisions.

The relevant inquiry is whether the government is presenting materially different legal questions, developing arguments capable of overcoming prior objections, or merely repeating positions that have already failed without resolving their underlying defects.

The October 2026 decision makes that inquiry particularly consequential because the Court identified deficiencies independent of the broader constitutional dispute. The problem was not limited to whether different judges might interpret federalism differently. The government’s requested relief failed to overcome independent state law, and its statutory claims failed to establish the legal connections necessary for standing and preemption.

Those defects require answers specific to the litigation itself.

The Public Interest in Responsible Government Litigation

The Department of Justice does not litigate using private funds. Its attorneys, administrative personnel, litigation support systems, and associated operations are financed through public appropriations. Federal courts also operate through public funding, while state and municipal defendants must allocate their own resources to respond.

The costs associated with these lawsuits therefore extend beyond the federal government’s immediate litigation expenditures.

When New York State or New York City must defend its laws against federal challenges, public resources that could otherwise support governmental operations are committed to legal defense. The federal judiciary must devote time and institutional capacity to resolving the disputes. Those expenditures are ordinary consequences of litigation, but they warrant greater scrutiny when the government repeatedly advances comparable claims after substantial adverse judicial treatment.

The constitutional right of the government to seek judicial relief does not establish that every decision to pursue litigation is fiscally prudent or institutionally justified.

Nor does the existence of an important federal enforcement objective eliminate the obligation to assess the likelihood that the requested remedy will accomplish a legally permissible result.

The public is entitled to question whether repeated challenges reflect a carefully developed legal strategy or an effort to continue pressing executive enforcement objectives despite persistent judicial rejection.

That question does not require an accusation of bad faith. It requires evaluating the government’s actual litigation record, the legal barriers identified by the courts, and the public purposes served by continuing the campaign.

The distinction is important because institutional accountability should be grounded in demonstrable conduct rather than speculation about the private motivations of government officials.

The Constitutional Traditionalism Question Becomes Unavoidable

The administration’s litigation record also provides a concrete basis for assessing its claims of constitutional traditionalism.

A commitment to traditional constitutional principles cannot be measured exclusively by public descriptions of limited government or fidelity to the Founding. It must also be measured by the governmental authority the administration asks courts to recognize.

The two New York lawsuits provide examples of the administration seeking expansive judicial relief against state and municipal decisions concerning the administration of their own institutions.

The question is whether those litigation positions are compatible with the limits on federal power that the administration professes to respect.

A consistent constitutional philosophy must account for circumstances in which independent state governments exercise authority contrary to national executive preferences. Otherwise, the professed commitment to state sovereignty risks becoming a position determined by policy agreement rather than constitutional principle.

That concern is distinct from whether the administration’s immigration policies are desirable. One may support rigorous federal immigration enforcement while recognizing that states are not automatically obligated to administer it. Conversely, opposition to a particular federal enforcement policy does not establish that every state restriction upon federal activity is constitutionally valid.

The governing issue is whether the administration applies constitutional limitations consistently when those limitations obstruct its own objectives.

The courts’ decisions provide an evidentiary basis for examining that question without relying upon assumptions about the administration’s intentions.

A Litigation Record That Demands an Explanation

The administration’s repeated judicial defeats do not establish that every federal challenge to a sanctuary provision must fail. Nor do they foreclose legitimate appellate review of unresolved constitutional questions. The decisions must be evaluated according to their actual holdings and the statutes governing each dispute.

What they do establish is that the federal government’s asserted enforcement interests have repeatedly proved insufficient to invalidate the particular state and local restrictions challenged.

The October 2026 decision added important findings concerning the ineffectiveness of the requested remedy, the limited scope of federal information-sharing provisions, and the failure of the government’s intergovernmental-immunity claims.

Those findings should inform any further litigation.

The Department of Justice is entitled to advocate its interpretation of federal law. But advocacy does not relieve it of the obligation to confront adverse authority, identify legally effective remedies, and account for constitutional limitations upon the relief sought.

The question now extends beyond the merits of individual lawsuits.

It concerns whether the administration’s repeated resort to federal litigation reflects the constitutional restraint associated with its professed traditionalism or an increasingly expansive conception of executive authority whenever state policy obstructs national enforcement priorities.

The decisions in New York provide a substantial record against which that question can be examined.

The next inquiry is whether the administration’s conduct is consistent with the constitutional philosophy it claims to represent—and whether the public should continue bearing the costs of litigation pursuing governmental powers that federal courts have repeatedly declined to recognize.