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The Trump administration on Monday filed a lawsuit against the city of Los Angeles, accusing it of violating the U.S. Constitution’s Supremacy Clause by enforcing sanctuary policies that federal officials say discriminate against immigration authorities.
The suit, filed in the Central District of California, argues that Los Angeles has adopted measures that obstruct federal immigration enforcement. The Justice Department is asking the court to block the city from continuing to implement those policies.
“The Supremacy Clause prohibits the City of Los Angeles and its officials from singling out the Federal Government for adverse treatment—as the challenged law and policies do—thereby discriminating against the Federal Government,” the government wrote in its filing. “Accordingly, the law and policies challenged here are invalid and should be enjoined.”
Federal lawyers contend that the city treats federal immigration officers differently from other law enforcement agencies, creating unconstitutional barriers to the enforcement of immigration laws. According to the suit, Los Angeles policies prevent officers from accessing detainees and property, restrict contractors from sharing information, and actively oppose federal criminal laws the city has chosen not to follow.
Attorney General Pam Bondi issued a statement Monday, blaming Los Angeles’ sanctuary measures for contributing to recent unrest and assaults on police.
“Jurisdictions like Los Angeles that flout federal law by prioritizing illegal aliens over American citizens are undermining law enforcement at every level – it ends under President Trump,” Bondi said. She added that the city’s policies “were the driving cause of the violence, chaos, and attacks on law enforcement that Americans recently witnessed.”
The lawsuit follows weeks of demonstrations in Los Angeles sparked by federal immigration crackdowns. City officials estimate the protests resulted in nearly $20 million in damages.
The Department of Homeland Security confirmed that the workplace investigations and raids led to multiple detentions in areas including the city’s Fashion District ahead of the riots.
The Mexican government reported that two of its nationals arrested during the operation had final orders of removal and were deported within 48 hours. Two others voluntarily left the country, Mexican Foreign Affairs Minister Juan Ramón de la Fuente said.
“If they had final orders of removal and especially if they weren’t responding, that means they had orders and never left,” Muzaffar Chishti, a senior fellow at the Migration Policy Institute, told The Washington Post.
“The position of the administration is that you don’t even get a hearing, you already had a hearing and we’re just executing the old order,” it added.