by Thomas Breen The New Haven independent
The Trump administration’s new anti-sanctuary-policy lawsuit accuses New Haven and Connecticut of violating the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution by limiting local and state cooperation with federal immigration authorities.
According to the feds, this constitutes an attempt to preempt federal immigration law.
According to Mayor Justin Elicker, Gov. Ned Lamont, and state Attorney General William Tong, this is simply New Haven and Connecticut asserting that the federal government — not state or local government — is responsible for enforcing immigration law.
“Our laws do not prevent federal authorities from enforcing immigration law,” Lamont said in an email statement Tuesday. “Rather, they reflect a longstanding principle: the federal government cannot require states to use their personnel or resources to carry out federal enforcement responsibilities.”
Elicker said the same during remarks at an unrelated press conference, as well as in a Tuesday afternoon Instagram post. It is the federal government’s job “to enforce immigration law,” he said. “It is not our job.”
Tong sounded a similar refrain in still a separate comment Tuesday. “It is a shame that the President and the Department of Justice are not focused on public safety but are wasting federal resources on attacking Connecticut with a baseless lawsuit that has no foundation in law or fact.”
Lamont, Elicker, and Tong — who, along with the State of Connecticut and the City of New Haven, are all named defendants in the case — promised to fight the federal lawsuit in court. As Tong put it, “We will defend Connecticut and Connecticut families and fight this lawless attack with every fiber of our being.”
The Supremacy Clause debate gets at the core of America’s federal government, with power dispersed across the national, state, and local levels. Depending on which party is in power in Washington, D.C. at any given point in time, Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives, have argued over just how much deference state and local governments must pay to a federal government whose policies they vehemently disagree with.
“The Trump Administration’s lawsuit against Connecticut is a baseless and wasteful misuse of federal resources that does nothing to improve public safety,” U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal said in an email statement Tuesday. “Instead of pursuing real reform to address alarming, often illegal conduct by CBP and ICE, this Administration is targeting Connecticut’s Trust Act, which helps law enforcement build the relationships they need to keep communities safe. This suit is about politics, not public safety, and represents a clear federal overreach into lawful state policy.”
“The Supreme Law Of The Land”
The U.S. Constitution’s Supremacy Clause states that federal law “shall be the supreme Law of the Land . . . any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.”
Therefore, the Trump administration asserts in this new 83-page complaint, “a state enactment is invalid if it ‘stands as an obstacle to the accomplishment and execution of the full purposes and objectives of Congress,’ … ‘regulat[es] the United States directly,’ … or ‘discriminate[s] against the United States or those with whom it deals’.”
The lawsuit argues that Connecticut’s TRUST Act and New Haven’s “Welcoming City” executive order do exactly that. The respective policies generally prohibit state and local employees from inquiring about or sharing someone’s immigration status with federal immigration agents unless required by federal law.
One such provision of New Haven’s “Welcoming City” executive order states in full: “No New Haven officer or City employee shall engage in activities designed to ascertain a person’s immigration status unless required by state or federal law.”
Another relevant part of the city’s executive order states: “No New Haven officer or City employee shall use agency or department resources, including but not limited to monies, facilities, property, equipment or personnel to investigate, enforce or assist in the investigation or enforcement of any federal program requiring registration of individuals on the basis of race, gender, sexual orientation, religion or national or ethnic origin.”
The Trump administration is now arguing — as it has in other lawsuits directed against other so-called “sanctuary” states and municipalities — that those policies should be struck down for violating the U.S. Constitution’s Supremacy Clause.
In a January 2025 opinion essay in CT Mirror, Mike Lawlor — a University of New Haven professor, New Haven police commission member, and former state legislator and criminal-justice policy advisor under Gov. Dannel Malloy — articulated why he believes the TRUST Act does not in fact violate federal law.
Lawlor pointed in particular to U.S. Supreme Court rulings around the so-called “anti-commandeering doctrine,” prohibiting the federal government from coercing states into administering or enforcing a federal program. As Lawlor argues, that includes federal immigration enforcement.
“The TRUST Act does not violate federal law and the federal government cannot, in Justice Scalia’s words, ‘commandeer’ state government to carry out federal government responsibilities like immigration enforcement,” Lawlor writes. “Our state and local police are not the immigration police.”
Meanwhile, In Hartford…
The announcement of the lawsuit came on the same day that the state Senate debated a bill presented by New Haven’s Gary Winfield to allow Connecticut civilians to sue federal agents who abuse their rights, to require federal agents to wear badges and prevent them from wearing masks on the job, and to allow the state inspector general to investigate allegations of misconduct by federal agents.
New Haven State Sen. and President Pro Tem Martin Looney said he expects the chamber to pass the bill by night’s end.
The timing of the bill and Trump’s lawsuit is coincidental but irrelevant, Looney said. He said the Senate’s work shows “Connecticut standing up for the Constitution despite attempts at intimidation by the federal government.”