NYT Op-Ed by Peter Markowitz: Trump Can’t Stop the Sanctuary Movement

Peter Markowitz (Cardozo Law) has published an op-ed in the New York Times, entitled “Trump Can’t Stop the Sanctuary Movement.” He addresses the question raised by Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ recent lawsuit against the State of California for its three sanctuary-related laws: do the principles animating Arizona v. United States, which affirmed the federal government’s role over immigration, support the current Administration’s allegations that the State of California has improperly interfered with immigration?  Markowitz’s answer, in brief: no. He explains that the Tenth Amendment, elaborated upon in the Supreme Court’s decision in Printz v. United States, “distinguishes California’s decision to opt out of deportation efforts from Arizona’s decision to opt in.”

As Markowitz writes: 

“The Justice Department is correct that the regulation of immigration is a federal matter. That’s why the Supreme Court made clear in the Arizona case that states may not insert themselves into immigration enforcement by directing its officers to arrest people on immigration charges. California, far from inserting itself, has extracted itself from federal immigration enforcement efforts in precisely the same way that the sheriffs in Printz extracted themselves from the federal effort to regulate the purchase of firearms.

Attorney General Sessions’s attempt to spin his attack on sanctuary laws as a logical extension of the Supreme Court’s Arizona decision is a transparent attempt to sidestep the clear rule established in Printz.”

-JKoh