Mamdani hails court ruling tossing Trump’s lawsuit against sanctuary laws

New York City Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani on Thursday, Oct. 15, welcomed a United States federal district court’s ruling dismissing a lawsuit by the Trump administration challenging the city’s Sanctuary Laws for Caribbean and other immigrants. In his ruling, Judge Ramón Reyes, Jr., a judge in US District Court in Brooklyn, who was appointed by former President Joe Biden, wrote that the Trump administration lacks standing to bring its 2025 lawsuit claiming New York City’s Sanctuary Laws are preempted by federal law.   “This is a victory for New Yorkers and a rebuke to ICE’s (US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency) deportation agenda,” Mayor Mamdani said. “The federal government came to court seeking to force New York City to turn its public servants into deportation agents and divert our resources toward carrying out ICE’s cruel agenda. Today, they lost.  “The court made clear that the federal government has no standing to bring this case and cannot commandeer our city workers to do its bidding,” he added. “Our local laws make New York City safer. They allow us to focus our resources on protecting and serving our communities and ensuring that every New Yorker can turn to their city government without fear that asking for help will make them a target for deportation.   “The federal government wants to use fear to divide our city,” Mamdani continued. “We will not let them. We will continue to uphold our local laws and use every tool at our disposal to protect New Yorkers from ICE’s abuses.  “Our city belongs to all of us, and we will not abandon our neighbors to satisfy an inhumane, xenophobic agenda,” he said.   The New York City Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs Commissioner Faiza N. Ali said that, “for decades, New York City’s Sanctuary Laws have helped build trust between immigrant New Yorkers and their local government.  “These local laws are essential to ensuring that all New Yorkers can access critical public services, including health care, housing and public education, without fear,” she added. “At a time when federal immigration enforcement is destabilizing and separating families and putting communities across the five boroughs at risk, defending these protections has never been more important. “Today’s ruling is a win for New York City and immigrant New Yorkers,” Ali continued. “It affirms our right to determine how to best use resources to serve and protect our communities. The federal government’s attempt to undermine our laws has been rejected, and we will not back down from our commitment to protecting our immigrant neighbors.” She said her office will “keep working to ensure immigrant New Yorkers know their rights, can access trusted support and have the opportunity to live with safety and dignity.” Murad Awawdeh, president and CEO of New York Immigration Coalition (NYIC), an umbrella organization of over 200 immigrant and refugee groups in New York, lauded Judge Reyes for “upholding our constitutional rights and the state’s rights to pass laws that keep our communities safe.” Awawdeh said Trump’s lawsuit was “a last-ditch attempt to make an end run around the Tenth Amendment.” The Tenth Amendment to the US Constitution states: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” Awawdeh said: “Neither New York City nor New York State will be bullied by the federal government to give up our rights and protections.” Judge Reyes wrote that, “even if the United States has standing — and it does not — its preemption claims fail. “All of the United States’ preemption claims — express, conflict and field — fail because the relevant federal statutes do not regulate private actors,” he said, adding that “there is nothing within federal law that obligates states to participate in federal immigration enforcement or compels states to comply therewith,  “The United States’ preemption arguments amount to nothing more than a backdoor around the Tenth Amendment and rest on a false distinction between (a) compelling local governments’ participation in federal immigration enforcement and (b) prohibiting local governments from dictating how their personnel and other resources may be utilized towards federal immigration enforcement,” Judge Reyes continued.  In July 2025, under the administration of then New York City Mayor Eric Adams, Trump’s Department of Justice (DOJ) challenged New York City’s Sanctuary Laws, claiming that prohibition against honoring detainer requests from ICE had “resulted in countless criminals being released into the city who should have been held for immigration removal from the United States.” Detainer requests, also referred to as “ICE holds,” are written requests from ICE or US Customs and Border Protection (CBP), requesting that state or local law enforcement agencies maintain custody of Caribbean and other immigrants for up to 48 hours after their release time, so ICE or CBP can detain them for subsequent deportation.  Judge Reyes’s ruling comes as the San Diego, CA-based Haitian Bridge Alliance (HBA) strongly condemned the Oct. 8 shooting of Oscar Belgal, 28, a Dominican Republic immigrant wounded by an ICE officer during an arrest operation in New York City, while his five-year-old son sat inside his vehicle. “This latest shooting is not an isolated incident,” HBA Executive Director Guerline Jozef told Caribbean Life, pointing to reports in which US federal immigration agents have been involved in at least 32 documented shooting incidents since 2025, leaving nine people dead and 15 others injured. In addition, Jozef noted that human rights and policy organizations have tracked over 60 total deaths inside ICE custody across this combined 2025–2026 period due to medical neglect, overcrowding and facility conditions. “These disturbing figures expose the deadly consequences of an immigration enforcement system increasingly defined by militarization, violence and a dangerous lack of accountability,” Jozef said. She said that, more recently, “Pierre Damas Bel, a brilliant 20-year-old immigrant from the Republic of Haiti and Wright State University student, committed suicide amid the termination of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for roughly 350,000 Haitian nationals and more than a million other nationals whose countries are facing severe humanitarian and security crises.” Jozef said Bel had reportedly been placed under electronic monitoring by US immigration authorities and “had spoken publicly about the fear, shame, bullying, and emotional distress he experienced while wearing an ankle monitor. “Far too many immigrants and Americans have been killed and shot by ICE, and now a five-year-old child has been exposed to gunfire during an ICE operation,” she said. “How many more families must be traumatized before we say enough is enough? “This administration has unleashed a campaign of fear and violence against immigrant communities, particularly Black and Brown families,” Jozef added. “We cannot continue to accept a system where immigration enforcement becomes a license to terrorize communities, endanger children, and take human lives. “Our humanity is not negotiable. Our dignity is not conditional on immigration status,” she continued. “We demand accountability, justice, and an immediate end to these dangerous enforcement practices.” Jozef said that, “for Haitian and other Black immigrant communities already confronting discriminatory immigration policies, racial profiling, and the constant threat of family separation, these shootings represent an escalating human rights crisis that demands national attention.” She said HBA calls for an immediate independent investigation into the New York shooting, the release of all relevant body-camera footage, full accountability for unlawful uses of force, and congressional intervention “to end militarized immigration enforcement practices that threaten civilian lives.” Caribbean-American Democratic Congresswoman Yvette D. Clarke has demanded that ICE agents leave New York City after an ICE agent shot Belgal in the Marble Hill section of Manhattan. Law enforcement authorities said the unidentified agent shot Belgal in the neck after ICE agents sought to detain him, with his 5-year-old son in the back of his car. “For nearly two long and painful years, Americans have watched in helpless horror as our neighbors continue to be stolen from their homes and shot in the street by agents of the Trump administration,” Clarke, the daughter of Jamaican immigrants, who represents the 9th Congressional District in Brooklyn, told Caribbean Life. The chair of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) said the “attempted murder of a New Yorker in front of his five-year-old son was far from the first disgraceful incident of its kind, but it must be the last. “We demand that ICE leave our city immediately, and we are too disgusted to accept any delay,” she said. “While the Trump administration’s government-sanctioned abuses have shocked our collective conscience and sickened our society, we cannot say that we are surprised to see them befall our communities.”