New York state is battling a Trump administration lawsuit for “prioritizing illegal aliens” over the safety of Americans.
New York City should prepare to be slammed with one soon.
Gov. Kathy Hochul blusters that the legal action is a “worthless, publicity-driven lawsuit” that “will be a total failure.”
She insists New York is “not backing down.”
Hochul is dead wrong about the merits of the lawsuit.
It’s a slam dunk for the Justice Department under the letter of the US Constitution.
The state and its top Democrats are being sued over the Green Light Law, a brainchild of Attorney General Letitia James and former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who signed it into law in 2019.
It allows illegal immigrants to get New York drivers’ licenses without having to worry that federal Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agents can access their identifying information.
The law prohibits federal enforcement officers from using the DMV database to see an individual’s picture, address or immigration status unless the feds get a warrant or court order.
That’s a time-consuming process.
It’s impossible during a traffic stop, for example.
Here’s the biggest outrage: The Green Light Law says DMV employees “shall,” within three days, notify license-holders when law enforcement does view their records — tipping them off to the investigation and giving them time to abscond.
Nineteen states allow illegal immigrants to get drivers’ licenses, but no other state has such a tip-off provision. It turns the DMV into an accomplice for criminals.
Announcing the lawsuit Feb. 12, US Attorney General Pam Bondi stood with Tammy Nobles, an “Angel Mom” whose daughter was raped and murdered by an MS-13 gang member in 2022.
Bondi accused New York of deliberately obstructing federal efforts to round up and deport criminals like the man who killed Nobles’ daughter, in violation of the Constitution’s supremacy clause and a new federal law.
The Laken Riley Act, which Trump signed last month, mandates any illegal alien convicted of theft, burglary, or crimes that cause death or bodily injury to be detained and deported on release from prison.
Almost 600,000 illegal immigrants with criminal convictions are in the United States now, border czar Tom Homan said last week.
The new law can only be followed if ICE knows the criminal is being released.
That’s where Bondi comes in.
She has also sued the city of Chicago, Cook County, and the state of Illinois for “affirmatively thwarting” the enforcement of federal immigration law, protecting “countless criminals” who should have been removed.
A long line of Supreme Court litigation says the federal government cannot “commandeer” state and local employees to do the feds’ jobs for them.
Hochul and Illinois officials will likely cite those precedents in their defense.
But Bondi can counter that local and state authorities are not just sitting on their hands: They are actively working to defeat federal law — violating the supremacy clause, which holds that state laws cannot thwart federal ones.
New York City will likely face a similar lawsuit, if Homan isn’t happy with the cooperation that Mayor Eric Adams has pledged to him.
And it’s unlikely Adams can deliver.
Homan told me last week that Adams promised not only to provide an ICE “presence” at Rikers Island, but to do other things he can’t make public — because the City Council would object.
Give the mayor a medal: He’s being pilloried by his own party for playing ball with the Trump administration on immigration enforcement.
But public sentiment is fully behind him. Nearly 72% of New York City residents polled by the Manhattan Institute want the city to help federal officials deport illegal immigrants who have committed crimes.
ICE says there are over 58,000 illegal migrants wandering city streets who are convicted felons or who face criminal charges.
Yet New York Democrats are battling to protect them.
Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez’s office held a webinar on how to evade ICE.
City Council members are introducing legislation to let New Yorkers sue any city agency that cooperates with federal immigration enforcement.
Albany lawmakers are offering legislation to bar ICE from schools or shelters without a court order.
It’s madness — a cash-strapped state and city risking billions in federal funds by warring against the White House, while simultaneously endangering their own citizens.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom gets it.
He is vowing to cooperate with Trump and veto a state bill that would bar prison officials from handing over illegal immigrant criminals to ICE.
New York is not a sovereign nation.
It is part of the United States and needs to behave that way, obeying the US Constitution.
Bondi is delivering that message in court. Voters need to deliver it at the ballot box.
Betsy McCaughey is a former lieutenant governor of New York and co-founder of the Committee to Save Our City.
