October 5, 2025 • 17 mins
The complaint provides several examples of alleged criminal acts committed by undocumented individuals who were released by city authorities after ICE detainers were ignored, asserting that the city’s policies endanger public safety and unlawfully discriminate against federal authority.
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https://x.com/Sec_Noem/status/1974443512017178924
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
You found the podcast Go Beyond the Brief, where we
take a deep dive into the societal currents shaping our lives. Together,
we'll explore the often unseen forces at play. We'll examine
the research, dissect the data, and most importantly, if you're
seeking to understand what's shaping our society, significant.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Legal clash the United States versus the City of New York.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
Yeah, it's a major constitutional showdown. The federal government is
directly challenging New York cities. Well, it's immigration enforcement policies.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
The ones people often call sanctuary provisions.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
Exactly, And we're working directly from the source. Here. The
actual legal complaint the US.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
File, right, it's filed against the city, the mayor of
the council, and key departments like corrections, the NYPD probation.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
So our mission really is to unpack what specific city
laws are under fire.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
And understand the federal argument. They're saying these local laws
are basically void because of the supremacy clause in the Constitution,
federal law Trump's local law.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
Here is the claim, and the complaint jumps right into
the deep end. It immediately references President Trump's declaration of
a national emergency at the border back in January twenty.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Twenty five and Executive Order fourteen one hundred and fifty nine,
setting the stage that this is about public safety threats
from certain illegal aliens. According to the filing, it.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
Really frames the whole thing as an urgent matter.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
So let's start where the complaint starts, with the public
safety context. The federal government uses some frankly tragic recent
events to argue that NYC's policies are failing operationally.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
Yeah, they use these specific examples to build their case.
It's a powerful narrative tool in a legal document.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
They kick off with that awful shooting of an off
duty CBP officer Fort Washington Park July twenty twenty five,
allegedly ambushed by two illegal aliens.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
And the complaint zeros in on the how how did
this happen?
Speaker 2 (01:54):
It focuses on one of the alleged shooters having a
prior arrest right April twenty twenty four.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
That's the crucial link they're drawing. IC Immigration and Customs
Enforcement put an immigration detainer on him while he was
in city.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Custody, which is basically a request to hold him so
ICY can pick him up.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
Simple request hold him for US, but the ner YC.
Department of Correction, the doc didn't honor it. They cited
city rules and released him.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
So the federal argument is the city's policy directly resulted
in him being free to allegedly commit this later crime
against a federal.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
Officer, exactly. And they don't stop there. They bring up
another really disturbing case to reinforce the point, which one
is that an alien arrested April twenty twenty three for
sexual assault held at Riker's Island. Again, Ice lodged a detainer.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
And again the doc didn't honor it.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
Ignored it, released him in June twenty twenty.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
Four, and then just two months later.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
Arrested again first degree rape of a homeless woman.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
Wow. And the complaint actually quotes Mayor Adams on this.
Speaker 3 (02:54):
It does Mayor Adams, who remember as a defendant. Here
he's quoted saying that specific individual was the poster child
of what's wrong with not doing that coordination with Ice.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
That really highlights that tension, maybe even conflict within the
city's own leadership about these policies.
Speaker 3 (03:10):
Absolutely, and now the federal government argues there's even stronger
federal law backing them up.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
They mentioned the Lake and Riley Act.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
Yes Senate Bill five from this year twenty twenty five.
It mandates federal detention for illegal immigrants accused of certain
serious crimes theft, assaulting law enforcement, crimes causing serious injury.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
So the Feds are essentially saying, look, Congress has spoken
directly on detaining these individuals.
Speaker 3 (03:33):
And your local laws New York City are actively getting
in the way. That's the core of the preemption claim.
If federal law says detain and local law stops it,
the local law has to give way.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
Okay. So that says the stage the human cost argued
by the Feds. Let's get down to the mechanics of
the policy clash. It seems to boil down to two
main things, detainers and sharing information. That's right.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
Let's start with the detainer. What is it?
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Listening who isn't familiar? Can you break that down?
Speaker 3 (04:02):
Sure? An IC detainer, It's it's basically a formal request.
It asks the local police or jail to do two things. Okay,
One tell IC before you release someone they suspect is
removable from the country, and two hold that person for
up to forty eight hours, not counting weekends. Or holidays, just.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
Long enough for IC to get there and take custody.
Speaker 3 (04:22):
Right, it's designed for a safe, orderly transfer inside a
secure facility and not out on the street.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
Okay, but the number cited in the lawsuit about NYC's compliance,
they're pretty stark. It goes beyond just not cooperating. It
looks like active resistance.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
Oh. Absolutely. The complaint uses the city's own data and
it shows well a near total collapse in cooperation. In
fiscal year twenty twenty four, the DOC honored only four
percent of IC detainers four percent.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
And you compare that to what was it before.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
Back in fiscal year twenty ten, the complaint notes DOC
honored eighty percent.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
Eighty down to four. That's not just a slight dip.
That's a a mass of policy shift made real.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
It's clearly deliberate. And look at the NYPD, the police department,
their cooperation even lower, how low. They haven't honored any
IC detainers since fiscal year twenty seventeen.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
Zero.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
They only honored seven total between twenty thirteen and twenty sixteen,
then stopped completely.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
And this lack of cooperation, IC argues forces their hand,
forces them out into the community.
Speaker 3 (05:21):
To make arrests, which they say is far more dangerous
and resource intensive.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
Okay, so that's the physical holding part to detainer. But
the lawsuit also hits hard on blocking communication, sharing information,
and there's a specific federal law about that right eight USC.
Section thirteen seventy three.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
Yes. Section thirteen seventy three, crucial piece of this. Congress
passed it back in nineteen ninety six, specifically to stop
states and localities from gagging their own officials say. It
explicitly says no state or local government can prohibit or
restrict any official from sending or receiving information about someone's
citizenship or immigration status with federal Immigration Authorities DHS.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
So Congress tried to guarantee that information flow.
Speaker 3 (06:03):
They did. They wanted to ensure local observation wasn't walled
off from federal enforcement.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
But the NYC Administrative Code seems to run right into that.
Section nine two. What specific information is the city telling
its employees not to share?
Speaker 3 (06:17):
It's incredibly specific. The city law forbids doc staff from
using any city time or resources to tell federal immigration
authorities about an inmate's well basic custodial information like what
like whether they're even incarcerated, their upcoming release date, even
their court to purist dates.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
Wait even court dates, so ICE can't even plan to
be there.
Speaker 3 (06:38):
That's what the fens are arguing. If ICE doesn't know
when someone's getting out or where they'll be in court,
the whole system of detainers and coordinated enforcement just breaks down.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
It sounds like that local law is designed specifically to
block the very communication Section thirteen seventy three requires.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
That's exactly the federal government's argument, pure obstruction.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
Let's trace this back a bit, and Y didn't just
become a sanctuary city overnight. This says a history. How
did we get to this point of near zero cooperation?
Speaker 3 (07:07):
It goes way back. You can trace the roots to
Mayor ed Cox Executive Order one twenty four in nineteen
eighty nine.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
Eighty nine. Wow.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
Yeah, that was one of the first big moves. It
barred city officials from sharing information with federal immigration authorities
unless there were very specific, limited circumstances.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
And then Congress reacted to moves like that nationwide with
those nineteen eighty six laws we mentioned, including section thirteen
seventy three exactly.
Speaker 3 (07:32):
Congress said, hold on immigration is federal territory, you need
to share information.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
And didn't the city fight that back then?
Speaker 3 (07:38):
Oh? Yes, NYC actually sued the United States over those
federal laws. They argued it infringed on their local autonomy.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
How did that turn out?
Speaker 3 (07:47):
They lost? The Second Servant Court of Appeals ultimately sided
with the federal government. The court said essentially that while
the Feds couldn't commandeer state resources entirely, states and cities
couldn't forbid all voluntary cooperation and information sharing. Federal authority
and immigration was affirmed.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
So the Feds won that round on information sharing back
in the nineties. How did the city manage to ramp
up restrictions again leading to where we are now with
this lawsuit.
Speaker 3 (08:14):
They shifted tactics. Instead of just blocking information, they focused
on making it practically impossible to honor the detainer request itself.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
Oh okay.
Speaker 3 (08:22):
And the crucial moment was twenty fourteen. That's when the
city council passed local laws fifty eight and fifty nine.
These drastically expanded the sanctuary rules. This is really the
legal core of the current fight.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
What was the killer change they made in twenty fourteen?
Speaker 3 (08:35):
They put in a new two part test for honoring
any IC detaylor super restrictive.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
Okay, what were the two parts?
Speaker 3 (08:42):
First, the detainer request absolutely had to be backed by
a warrant signed by an Article three federal judge or magistrate.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
Judge Article three judge. That sounds serious, like for criminal
cases exactly.
Speaker 3 (08:54):
And Second, the person had to have been convicted of
a specific violent or serious crime within the last five year,
or they had to be on the federal Terrorist watch list.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
Okay, let's pause on that warrant requirement, an Article three
judicial warrant. Why is demanding that type of warrant such
a big deal? Why does it effectively shut ICE down?
Speaker 3 (09:15):
Because immigration enforcement, for the most part, is handled under
civil law, not criminal law. IC uses what's called a
civil administrative warrant for removal.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
Proceedings, So that's different from a criminal warrant.
Speaker 3 (09:26):
Totally different. And administrative warrant is an internal government form
signed by an authorized immigration official, not a judge. Congress
specifically authorized IC to use these administrative warrants to take
custody for civil immigration violations. It functions more like a
notice or an order within the executive branch, but an.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
Article three judicial warrant, that's what you need for a
criminal rest or search right signed off by a neutral
judge based on probable cause of a crime.
Speaker 3 (09:56):
Correct. So by demanding a criminal style judicial warrant for
a civil immigration hold, NYC set a bar that IC
simply cannot meet. In most cases, IC doesn't get judicial
warrants for routine removals because it's not a criminal process, So.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
The city is demanding a tool that isn't used or
even appropriate for this function.
Speaker 3 (10:16):
Precisely, it's like asking the health inspector to get a
criminal search warrant just to check a restaurant's kitchen. Because
IC can't produce this specific type of warrant, their congressionally
approved administrative warrants become useless in NYC jails.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
Which explains the plunge to four percent compliance.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
It effectively eliminated compliance for almost everyone, and the city
knew it. The complaint mentions that the city's own analysis
back on twenty fourteen predicted this change could bring the
percentage of detainers to virtually zero.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
So it was a calculated move to achieve non compliance
through procedural hurdles.
Speaker 3 (10:48):
That's the argument, and it wasn't just the warrant. The
narrow five year window for violent or serious convictions also
excluded many people IC might consider priorities, maybe someone with
older convictions or someone with pending serious charges but no
conviction yet.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
And the complaint points to other city rules that create
obstacles too, right, beyond just the warrant.
Speaker 3 (11:11):
Thing, yes, several others. There's NYC Admin Codes Section ten
one seven eight. It basically says city money and city
employee time can't be used to help with immigration.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
Enforcement, which sounds very broad it is.
Speaker 3 (11:23):
And then there's section nine one point thirty one two,
which gets really specific. It flat out prohibits federal immigration
authorities from having an office on any Department of Correction
property if it's for civil immigration enforcement.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
No IC office spase on Riker's Island, for example, to
process civil cases.
Speaker 3 (11:40):
Correct, which leads directly to that recent clash within the
city government itself.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
Ah right, the mayor versus the City Council earlier.
Speaker 3 (11:47):
This year, exactly over Executive Order fifty that was back
in April twenty twenty five. First Deputy Mayor Sheena Mastro
tried to authorize some federal agencies, including an ICE division,
to have office space on DOC grounds.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
But there was a catch.
Speaker 3 (12:02):
Wasn't there a big one? It was strictly limited to
criminal enforcement only, not civil removals. It looks like the
Mayor's office trying to find a tiny loophole, maybe cooperate
on cross border crime without touching the sanctuary law protections
for civil immigration.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
An attempt to thread the needle. Maybe satisfy both the
FEDS on crime and the Council on sanctuary.
Speaker 3 (12:23):
Possibly, but even that tiny step towards cooperation was too
much for the city Council.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
They sued. The Mayor's office.
Speaker 3 (12:29):
Immediately argued it violated the spirit, if not the letter,
of the sanctuary laws, and they won, at least initially.
A judge granted a preliminary injunction in June twenty twenty five,
stopping the executive order cold, and the.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
Council speaker was pretty clear about their motives.
Speaker 3 (12:44):
Very clear. Speaker Adrian Adams said the Council would use
its power to protect New Yorkers from the Trump administration's
harmful agenda. It shows a deep political commitment in the
Council to maximum non cooperation, even if the mayor seems
to acknowledge some downsides.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
So from Icy's perspective, what's the practical result of all
these layers of non cooperation, the ignored detainers, the info
blocking the office bands well.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
Tom Homan, the former acting IC director, is quoted in
the complaint along with other IC statements. They all say
the same thing, it's dangerous and expensive.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
Why dangerous because if they.
Speaker 3 (13:21):
Can't do a simple safe transfer inside a jail, they
have to find and arrest these individuals out in the community.
They call them at large.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
Arrests, which means tracking people down on.
Speaker 3 (13:30):
The street, on the street, at their homes, at their workplaces.
Think about it. It takes way more resources, surveillance, planning,
and Homan argues it's inherently riskier, riskier for whom for
everyone involved, the IC officers, the person being arrested, and
potentially the public nearby. An arrest in a controlled jail
setting is predictable. An arrest out in the open can
(13:50):
be unpredictable, chaotic, potentially confrontational. It turns a routine transfer
into a potentially high risk operation.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
Okay, so we've covered the context this saecific policies, the history,
the internal city conflicts, and the operational impacts. Let's bring
it all together. What for the core legal arguments the
US government is making in this lawsuit the big So
what Why do they say these NYC laws are illegal?
Speaker 3 (14:14):
There are basically three main claims, all rooted in the
supremacy Clause of the Constitution. The idea that federal law
is supreme okay. Claim number one, violation of the supremacy
clause through preemption. This is the bedrock argument. The US
says these NYC laws create a direct obstacle to enforcing
federal immigration law. They specifically block the communication Congress required
(14:36):
in Section thirteen seventy three, and they make it impossible
for ICE to use the administrative warrants Congress authorized. When
local law makes federal law impossible to execute, it's preempted,
meaning it's void.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
So NYC is standing in the way of federal functions.
Speaker 3 (14:51):
Claim to unlawful discrimination against the federal government. This one
focuses on unequal treatment. The argument is NYC treats fe
federal immigration authorities differently and worse than other law enforcement
agencies a host so well, the NYPD and DOC cooperate
all the time with the FBI, the DEA, state police,
other local agencies, sharing info, providing access, working together, but
(15:13):
they have specific rules banning that same cooperation, that same
access for IC civil enforcement. The Feds say that's discrimination
based solely on the agency's federal immigration mission.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
Singling out IC for non cooperation, and the third claim.
Speaker 3 (15:30):
Unlawful regulation of the federal government. This goes right back
to that Article three warrant demand. By telling IC what
kind of warrant it must get, a judicial one, not
its authorized administrative one, and by restricting ices access to
detainees based on that demand, NYC is effectively trying to
regulate how the federal government performs its duties.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
Dictating terms to a federal agency about its own congressionally
authorized procedures.
Speaker 3 (15:54):
Exactly, they're saying NYC is unlawfully interfering with federal officers
carrying out their duties under the Immigration and Nationality Act,
like the duty to inspect arriving aliens.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
So when you boil it all down, this deep dive
really lays bare this long running tension federal government asserting
total control over immigration versus a major city using well
every legal tool it confined to limit its participation in
that enforcement.
Speaker 3 (16:22):
It's a fundamental conflict over power, policy and information, and
that information control piece seems absolutely central.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
Yeah, you mentioned earlier the complaint alleges that in that
Coney Island rape case, the doc said they had no
record of the IC detainer, even though IC insists they
lodged one right.
Speaker 3 (16:39):
Which brings us to that final thought for you. The
listener to really chew on the complaint suggests NYC policies
go beyond just ignoring detainers. It implies they might prevent
city employees from even documenting a detainer or an administrative
warrant in an inmates official file.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
So a record itself is kept clean of the federal interest.
Speaker 3 (16:56):
Potentially, think about the implications. Legally valid detainer exists, but
it's intentionally kept out of the internal records. What happens
next if.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
That person gets transferred to another facility or goes.
Speaker 3 (17:09):
To court the next agency, the next official has no
way of knowing about the IC hold. They can't act
on it because according to the file in front of them,
it doesn't exist.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
So the question becomes is controlling internal record keeping in
this way just passive non cooperation respecting local rules, or
does it cross a line into actively deliberately obstructing federal
law enforcement by manipulating the information flow itself.
Speaker 3 (17:35):
Where does that line sit. That's a really thorny legal
and practical question at the heart of this case, defining
the limits of state and local resistance to federal policy.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
Definitely something to think about as high stakes legal battle unfolds.
You found the podcast Go Beyond the Brief, where we
take a deep dive into the societal currents shaping our lives. Together,
we'll explore the often unseen forces at play. We'll examine
the research, dissect the data, and most importantly, if you're
seeking to understand what's shaping our society, significant.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Legal clash the United States versus the City of New York.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
Yeah, it's a major constitutional showdown. The federal government is
directly challenging New York cities. Well, it's immigration enforcement policies.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
The ones people often call sanctuary provisions.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
Exactly, And we're working directly from the source. Here. The
actual legal complaint the US.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
File, right, it's filed against the city, the mayor of
the council, and key departments like corrections, the NYPD probation.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
So our mission really is to unpack what specific city
laws are under fire.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
And understand the federal argument. They're saying these local laws
are basically void because of the supremacy clause in the Constitution,
federal law Trump's local law.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
Here is the claim, and the complaint jumps right into
the deep end. It immediately references President Trump's declaration of
a national emergency at the border back in January twenty.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Twenty five and Executive Order fourteen one hundred and fifty nine,
setting the stage that this is about public safety threats
from certain illegal aliens. According to the filing, it.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
Really frames the whole thing as an urgent matter.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
So let's start where the complaint starts, with the public
safety context. The federal government uses some frankly tragic recent
events to argue that NYC's policies are failing operationally.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
Yeah, they use these specific examples to build their case.
It's a powerful narrative tool in a legal document.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
They kick off with that awful shooting of an off
duty CBP officer Fort Washington Park July twenty twenty five,
allegedly ambushed by two illegal aliens.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
And the complaint zeros in on the how how did
this happen?
Speaker 2 (01:54):
It focuses on one of the alleged shooters having a
prior arrest right April twenty twenty four.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
That's the crucial link they're drawing. IC Immigration and Customs
Enforcement put an immigration detainer on him while he was
in city.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Custody, which is basically a request to hold him so
ICY can pick him up.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
Simple request hold him for US, but the ner YC.
Department of Correction, the doc didn't honor it. They cited
city rules and released him.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
So the federal argument is the city's policy directly resulted
in him being free to allegedly commit this later crime
against a federal.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
Officer, exactly. And they don't stop there. They bring up
another really disturbing case to reinforce the point, which one
is that an alien arrested April twenty twenty three for
sexual assault held at Riker's Island. Again, Ice lodged a detainer.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
And again the doc didn't honor it.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
Ignored it, released him in June twenty twenty.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
Four, and then just two months later.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
Arrested again first degree rape of a homeless woman.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
Wow. And the complaint actually quotes Mayor Adams on this.
Speaker 3 (02:54):
It does Mayor Adams, who remember as a defendant. Here
he's quoted saying that specific individual was the poster child
of what's wrong with not doing that coordination with Ice.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
That really highlights that tension, maybe even conflict within the
city's own leadership about these policies.
Speaker 3 (03:10):
Absolutely, and now the federal government argues there's even stronger
federal law backing them up.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
They mentioned the Lake and Riley Act.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
Yes Senate Bill five from this year twenty twenty five.
It mandates federal detention for illegal immigrants accused of certain
serious crimes theft, assaulting law enforcement, crimes causing serious injury.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
So the Feds are essentially saying, look, Congress has spoken
directly on detaining these individuals.
Speaker 3 (03:33):
And your local laws New York City are actively getting
in the way. That's the core of the preemption claim.
If federal law says detain and local law stops it,
the local law has to give way.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
Okay. So that says the stage the human cost argued
by the Feds. Let's get down to the mechanics of
the policy clash. It seems to boil down to two
main things, detainers and sharing information. That's right.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
Let's start with the detainer. What is it?
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Listening who isn't familiar? Can you break that down?
Speaker 3 (04:02):
Sure? An IC detainer, It's it's basically a formal request.
It asks the local police or jail to do two things. Okay,
One tell IC before you release someone they suspect is
removable from the country, and two hold that person for
up to forty eight hours, not counting weekends. Or holidays, just.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
Long enough for IC to get there and take custody.
Speaker 3 (04:22):
Right, it's designed for a safe, orderly transfer inside a
secure facility and not out on the street.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
Okay, but the number cited in the lawsuit about NYC's compliance,
they're pretty stark. It goes beyond just not cooperating. It
looks like active resistance.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
Oh. Absolutely. The complaint uses the city's own data and
it shows well a near total collapse in cooperation. In
fiscal year twenty twenty four, the DOC honored only four
percent of IC detainers four percent.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
And you compare that to what was it before.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
Back in fiscal year twenty ten, the complaint notes DOC
honored eighty percent.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
Eighty down to four. That's not just a slight dip.
That's a a mass of policy shift made real.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
It's clearly deliberate. And look at the NYPD, the police department,
their cooperation even lower, how low. They haven't honored any
IC detainers since fiscal year twenty seventeen.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
Zero.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
They only honored seven total between twenty thirteen and twenty sixteen,
then stopped completely.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
And this lack of cooperation, IC argues forces their hand,
forces them out into the community.
Speaker 3 (05:21):
To make arrests, which they say is far more dangerous
and resource intensive.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
Okay, so that's the physical holding part to detainer. But
the lawsuit also hits hard on blocking communication, sharing information,
and there's a specific federal law about that right eight USC.
Section thirteen seventy three.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
Yes. Section thirteen seventy three, crucial piece of this. Congress
passed it back in nineteen ninety six, specifically to stop
states and localities from gagging their own officials say. It
explicitly says no state or local government can prohibit or
restrict any official from sending or receiving information about someone's
citizenship or immigration status with federal Immigration Authorities DHS.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
So Congress tried to guarantee that information flow.
Speaker 3 (06:03):
They did. They wanted to ensure local observation wasn't walled
off from federal enforcement.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
But the NYC Administrative Code seems to run right into that.
Section nine two. What specific information is the city telling
its employees not to share?
Speaker 3 (06:17):
It's incredibly specific. The city law forbids doc staff from
using any city time or resources to tell federal immigration
authorities about an inmate's well basic custodial information like what
like whether they're even incarcerated, their upcoming release date, even
their court to purist dates.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
Wait even court dates, so ICE can't even plan to
be there.
Speaker 3 (06:38):
That's what the fens are arguing. If ICE doesn't know
when someone's getting out or where they'll be in court,
the whole system of detainers and coordinated enforcement just breaks down.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
It sounds like that local law is designed specifically to
block the very communication Section thirteen seventy three requires.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
That's exactly the federal government's argument, pure obstruction.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
Let's trace this back a bit, and Y didn't just
become a sanctuary city overnight. This says a history. How
did we get to this point of near zero cooperation?
Speaker 3 (07:07):
It goes way back. You can trace the roots to
Mayor ed Cox Executive Order one twenty four in nineteen
eighty nine.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
Eighty nine. Wow.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
Yeah, that was one of the first big moves. It
barred city officials from sharing information with federal immigration authorities
unless there were very specific, limited circumstances.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
And then Congress reacted to moves like that nationwide with
those nineteen eighty six laws we mentioned, including section thirteen
seventy three exactly.
Speaker 3 (07:32):
Congress said, hold on immigration is federal territory, you need
to share information.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
And didn't the city fight that back then?
Speaker 3 (07:38):
Oh? Yes, NYC actually sued the United States over those
federal laws. They argued it infringed on their local autonomy.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
How did that turn out?
Speaker 3 (07:47):
They lost? The Second Servant Court of Appeals ultimately sided
with the federal government. The court said essentially that while
the Feds couldn't commandeer state resources entirely, states and cities
couldn't forbid all voluntary cooperation and information sharing. Federal authority
and immigration was affirmed.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
So the Feds won that round on information sharing back
in the nineties. How did the city manage to ramp
up restrictions again leading to where we are now with
this lawsuit.
Speaker 3 (08:14):
They shifted tactics. Instead of just blocking information, they focused
on making it practically impossible to honor the detainer request itself.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
Oh okay.
Speaker 3 (08:22):
And the crucial moment was twenty fourteen. That's when the
city council passed local laws fifty eight and fifty nine.
These drastically expanded the sanctuary rules. This is really the
legal core of the current fight.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
What was the killer change they made in twenty fourteen?
Speaker 3 (08:35):
They put in a new two part test for honoring
any IC detaylor super restrictive.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
Okay, what were the two parts?
Speaker 3 (08:42):
First, the detainer request absolutely had to be backed by
a warrant signed by an Article three federal judge or magistrate.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
Judge Article three judge. That sounds serious, like for criminal
cases exactly.
Speaker 3 (08:54):
And Second, the person had to have been convicted of
a specific violent or serious crime within the last five year,
or they had to be on the federal Terrorist watch list.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
Okay, let's pause on that warrant requirement, an Article three
judicial warrant. Why is demanding that type of warrant such
a big deal? Why does it effectively shut ICE down?
Speaker 3 (09:15):
Because immigration enforcement, for the most part, is handled under
civil law, not criminal law. IC uses what's called a
civil administrative warrant for removal.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
Proceedings, So that's different from a criminal warrant.
Speaker 3 (09:26):
Totally different. And administrative warrant is an internal government form
signed by an authorized immigration official, not a judge. Congress
specifically authorized IC to use these administrative warrants to take
custody for civil immigration violations. It functions more like a
notice or an order within the executive branch, but an.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
Article three judicial warrant, that's what you need for a
criminal rest or search right signed off by a neutral
judge based on probable cause of a crime.
Speaker 3 (09:56):
Correct. So by demanding a criminal style judicial warrant for
a civil immigration hold, NYC set a bar that IC
simply cannot meet. In most cases, IC doesn't get judicial
warrants for routine removals because it's not a criminal process, So.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
The city is demanding a tool that isn't used or
even appropriate for this function.
Speaker 3 (10:16):
Precisely, it's like asking the health inspector to get a
criminal search warrant just to check a restaurant's kitchen. Because
IC can't produce this specific type of warrant, their congressionally
approved administrative warrants become useless in NYC jails.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
Which explains the plunge to four percent compliance.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
It effectively eliminated compliance for almost everyone, and the city
knew it. The complaint mentions that the city's own analysis
back on twenty fourteen predicted this change could bring the
percentage of detainers to virtually zero.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
So it was a calculated move to achieve non compliance
through procedural hurdles.
Speaker 3 (10:48):
That's the argument, and it wasn't just the warrant. The
narrow five year window for violent or serious convictions also
excluded many people IC might consider priorities, maybe someone with
older convictions or someone with pending serious charges but no
conviction yet.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
And the complaint points to other city rules that create
obstacles too, right, beyond just the warrant.
Speaker 3 (11:11):
Thing, yes, several others. There's NYC Admin Codes Section ten
one seven eight. It basically says city money and city
employee time can't be used to help with immigration.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
Enforcement, which sounds very broad it is.
Speaker 3 (11:23):
And then there's section nine one point thirty one two,
which gets really specific. It flat out prohibits federal immigration
authorities from having an office on any Department of Correction
property if it's for civil immigration enforcement.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
No IC office spase on Riker's Island, for example, to
process civil cases.
Speaker 3 (11:40):
Correct, which leads directly to that recent clash within the
city government itself.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
Ah right, the mayor versus the City Council earlier.
Speaker 3 (11:47):
This year, exactly over Executive Order fifty that was back
in April twenty twenty five. First Deputy Mayor Sheena Mastro
tried to authorize some federal agencies, including an ICE division,
to have office space on DOC grounds.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
But there was a catch.
Speaker 3 (12:02):
Wasn't there a big one? It was strictly limited to
criminal enforcement only, not civil removals. It looks like the
Mayor's office trying to find a tiny loophole, maybe cooperate
on cross border crime without touching the sanctuary law protections
for civil immigration.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
An attempt to thread the needle. Maybe satisfy both the
FEDS on crime and the Council on sanctuary.
Speaker 3 (12:23):
Possibly, but even that tiny step towards cooperation was too
much for the city Council.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
They sued. The Mayor's office.
Speaker 3 (12:29):
Immediately argued it violated the spirit, if not the letter,
of the sanctuary laws, and they won, at least initially.
A judge granted a preliminary injunction in June twenty twenty five,
stopping the executive order cold, and the.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
Council speaker was pretty clear about their motives.
Speaker 3 (12:44):
Very clear. Speaker Adrian Adams said the Council would use
its power to protect New Yorkers from the Trump administration's
harmful agenda. It shows a deep political commitment in the
Council to maximum non cooperation, even if the mayor seems
to acknowledge some downsides.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
So from Icy's perspective, what's the practical result of all
these layers of non cooperation, the ignored detainers, the info
blocking the office bands well.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
Tom Homan, the former acting IC director, is quoted in
the complaint along with other IC statements. They all say
the same thing, it's dangerous and expensive.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
Why dangerous because if they.
Speaker 3 (13:21):
Can't do a simple safe transfer inside a jail, they
have to find and arrest these individuals out in the community.
They call them at large.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
Arrests, which means tracking people down on.
Speaker 3 (13:30):
The street, on the street, at their homes, at their workplaces.
Think about it. It takes way more resources, surveillance, planning,
and Homan argues it's inherently riskier, riskier for whom for
everyone involved, the IC officers, the person being arrested, and
potentially the public nearby. An arrest in a controlled jail
setting is predictable. An arrest out in the open can
(13:50):
be unpredictable, chaotic, potentially confrontational. It turns a routine transfer
into a potentially high risk operation.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
Okay, so we've covered the context this saecific policies, the history,
the internal city conflicts, and the operational impacts. Let's bring
it all together. What for the core legal arguments the
US government is making in this lawsuit the big So
what Why do they say these NYC laws are illegal?
Speaker 3 (14:14):
There are basically three main claims, all rooted in the
supremacy Clause of the Constitution. The idea that federal law
is supreme okay. Claim number one, violation of the supremacy
clause through preemption. This is the bedrock argument. The US
says these NYC laws create a direct obstacle to enforcing
federal immigration law. They specifically block the communication Congress required
(14:36):
in Section thirteen seventy three, and they make it impossible
for ICE to use the administrative warrants Congress authorized. When
local law makes federal law impossible to execute, it's preempted,
meaning it's void.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
So NYC is standing in the way of federal functions.
Speaker 3 (14:51):
Claim to unlawful discrimination against the federal government. This one
focuses on unequal treatment. The argument is NYC treats fe
federal immigration authorities differently and worse than other law enforcement
agencies a host so well, the NYPD and DOC cooperate
all the time with the FBI, the DEA, state police,
other local agencies, sharing info, providing access, working together, but
(15:13):
they have specific rules banning that same cooperation, that same
access for IC civil enforcement. The Feds say that's discrimination
based solely on the agency's federal immigration mission.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
Singling out IC for non cooperation, and the third claim.
Speaker 3 (15:30):
Unlawful regulation of the federal government. This goes right back
to that Article three warrant demand. By telling IC what
kind of warrant it must get, a judicial one, not
its authorized administrative one, and by restricting ices access to
detainees based on that demand, NYC is effectively trying to
regulate how the federal government performs its duties.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
Dictating terms to a federal agency about its own congressionally
authorized procedures.
Speaker 3 (15:54):
Exactly, they're saying NYC is unlawfully interfering with federal officers
carrying out their duties under the Immigration and Nationality Act,
like the duty to inspect arriving aliens.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
So when you boil it all down, this deep dive
really lays bare this long running tension federal government asserting
total control over immigration versus a major city using well
every legal tool it confined to limit its participation in
that enforcement.
Speaker 3 (16:22):
It's a fundamental conflict over power, policy and information, and
that information control piece seems absolutely central.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
Yeah, you mentioned earlier the complaint alleges that in that
Coney Island rape case, the doc said they had no
record of the IC detainer, even though IC insists they
lodged one right.
Speaker 3 (16:39):
Which brings us to that final thought for you. The
listener to really chew on the complaint suggests NYC policies
go beyond just ignoring detainers. It implies they might prevent
city employees from even documenting a detainer or an administrative
warrant in an inmates official file.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
So a record itself is kept clean of the federal interest.
Speaker 3 (16:56):
Potentially, think about the implications. Legally valid detainer exists, but
it's intentionally kept out of the internal records. What happens
next if.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
That person gets transferred to another facility or goes.
Speaker 3 (17:09):
To court the next agency, the next official has no
way of knowing about the IC hold. They can't act
on it because according to the file in front of them,
it doesn't exist.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
So the question becomes is controlling internal record keeping in
this way just passive non cooperation respecting local rules, or
does it cross a line into actively deliberately obstructing federal
law enforcement by manipulating the information flow itself.
Speaker 3 (17:35):
Where does that line sit. That's a really thorny legal
and practical question at the heart of this case, defining
the limits of state and local resistance to federal policy.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
Definitely something to think about as high stakes legal battle unfolds.
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