Appeals court smacks down blue state sanctuary law banning ICE detention contracts

Federal immigration authorities triumphed over a sanctuary law that sought to ban them from contracting with private detention companies in the state of New Jersey.

In a 2-1 ruling handed down Tuesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit ruled that New Jersey’s law prohibiting businesses from entering into private detention contracts unlawfully discriminated against the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), according to court documents. The majority of appellate judges determined that the state was blatantly violating the Constitution by regulating the federal government’s power to enforce immigration law.

“[New Jersey] dislikes some of the federal government’s immigration tools, so it passed a law with the ‘intent’ to forbid new contracts for civil immigration detention,” Judge Stephanos Bibas, a Trump appointee, wrote in a decision, joined by Obama appointee Judge Cheryl Ann Krause.”That law interferes with the federal government’s core power to enforce immigration laws.”

“Its construction is admittedly clever: It seeks to sidestep the usual two-prong test that courts use to enforce the ‘bedrock principle’ that states may not regulate their federal counterpart,” Bibas continued. “Still, we see the law for what ‘it really is’: a direct regulation on the federal government.”

The court fight revolves around A5207, legislation signed into law by Democrat Gov. Phil Murphy in 2021 that banned local and private jails in New Jersey from signing contracts to hold federal migrant detainees. Under the policy, all local and private jails or detention centers were prohibited from “entering into, renewing, or extending immigration detention agreements” with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

The law had significant ramifications for ICE’s operations in New Jersey, as its only facility in the state at the time was the privately-run Elizabeth Detention Center. CoreCivic, a major private prison company, filed a lawsuit in February against Murphy and Democratic New Jersey Attorney General Matt Platkin, arguing the law violates the Constitution’s supremacy clause.

“AB-5207 undermines and eliminates the congressionally funded and approved enforcement of federal immigration law by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (‘ICE’) within the State of New Jersey,” CoreCivic argued in its lawsuit. “The [Elizabeth Detention Center] represents essentially the entire immigration detention capacity for the Federal Government in New Jersey.

A Statement of Intent from the Department of Justice in 2023 argued that the New Jersey law violated the federal government’s authority to “regulate immigration” and “make contracting decisions” for the federal government.

The Trump administration, which has sought to ramp its migrant detention capacity across the U.S., has since opened a new facility in Newark, according to private prison operator GEO Group. The facility, Delaney Hall, is a 1,000-bed detention center contracted by ICE to hold illegal migrants.

The Newark facility has since been the target of fierce resistance by Democrats and immigration advocates.

Newark Mayor Ras Baraka was arrested in May when he attempted to join Democrat congressional representatives touring the Delaney Hall detention facility in an incident that turned chaotic. Federal prosecutors ultimately dropped a trespassing charge against Baraka, but charged New Jersey Rep. LaMonica McIver with two counts of assaulting officers for her alleged role in the incident.

Tuesday’s ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit is limited to New Jersey, but could stretch across the U.S. as other Democrat-led states continue to thwart federal immigration enforcement through legislative and executive actions.

New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin bemoaned the court’s decision in a Tuesday public statement.

“We are disappointed in the Third Circuit’s ruling this morning invalidating our law prohibiting private immigration detention,”  Platkin stated. “We will continue to do all we can to defend these important goals and are evaluating our next steps in this case.”