The lawsuit was dismissed without prejudice, meaning that it can be refiled if the Trump administration finds a way to successfully establish standing.
A federal judge has found that the U.S. Department of Justice lacks the legal standing necessary to challenge a series of “sanctuary”-style policies enacted across four New Jersey cities.
According to POLITICO, the Justice Department sued Newark, Jersey City, Paterson, and Hoboken in May 2025. In court documents, government attorneys said that each city’s immigration policies were unconstitutional, representing “a frontal assault on the federal immigration laws and the federal authorities that administer them.”
U.S. District Judge Evelyn Padin, however, indicated she couldn’t quite understand why the Justice Department chose to sue. In her Wednesday ruling, Padin noted that the immigration policies at issue are nearly identical to the New Jersey’s statewide Immigrant Trust Directive, a laws that has been upheld in federal court multiple times before.
The Immigrant Trust Directive, approved by then-Gov. Phil Murphy in 2018 and written into state law by current Gov. Mikie Sherill earlier this year, places strict limitations on how, when, and where local and state law enforcement can collaborate with federal immigration authorities.
Padin found that, even if the Justice Department’s claim against the cities were to succeed, it would still leave the nearly-identical Immigrant Trust Directive intact.
“The Federal Government’s case has a fundamental flaw—it treats the Challenged Policies as though they operate in isolation,” Padin wrote. “They do not. New Jersey’s Immigrant Trust Directive is a statewide directive that, like the Challenged Policies, limits voluntary cooperation with federal civil immigration enforcement beyond what the law requires.”
“Even if the Court enjoined the Challenged Policies,” Padin said, “its injuries would persist.”
POLITICO notes that the Justice Department had earlier tried to pre-empt this argument by asserting that the cities’ policies, in some cases, exceed the restrictions already imposed by the Immigrant Trust Directive. Padin, however, found that these differences are too minor or far-flung to warrant continued litigation.
“No judgment here could invalidate the ITD or relieve municipal law enforcement officers of their independent obligation to follow it,” Padin wrote.
Padin also pointed out that the government broadly failed to articulate the “harms” it has sustained as the result of the cities’ policies. The Justice Department did cite several examples of times when ICE detainers were ignored, but each example involved the Essex County Correctional Facility, a county jail that is not a defendant in the lawsuit and is also bound by the Immigrant Trust Directive.
“The Federal Government must plead facts that substantiate its feared harm,” Padin said.
The lawsuit was dismissed without prejudice, meaning that it can be refiled if the Trump administration finds a way to successfully establish standing.
Sources
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Judge tosses DOJ lawsuit against 4 New Jersey ‘sanctuary cities’
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