The Department of Justice’s lawsuit against the city of Rochester, New York, for its sanctuary city policies was dismissed by U.S. District Court Judge Frank Geraci on Tuesday. The ruling follows an Obama-appointed federal judge rejecting the government’s claim that the city’s laws violated the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution.
The case originated from a March 2025 incident when Rochester police officers assisted Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in arresting a Guatemalan man during a traffic stop. City officials stated the actions breached sanctuary city policies, prompting the officers to be removed from duty for additional training.
Judge Geraci ruled that Rochester’s Sanctuary City laws “are not a prohibition on or interference with the federal government’s role in enforcing immigration policy.” Instead, he wrote, they “simply recognize the different functions of each governmental body.” The judge further explained that such policies “only dictate” police officers cannot participate in immigration enforcement and “do not dictate how the federal government must act,” meaning they do not violate the intergovernmental immunity doctrine.
White House spokeswoman Lauren Bis condemned the decision, stating: “These sanctuary policies make Americans less safe. Extreme Democrats’ sanctuary policies result in criminal illegal aliens being directly released from jail back into American communities to perpetrate more crimes and create more innocent American victims.” She cited the 2024 murder of Georgia nursing student Laken Riley by an illegal alien who had been released due to a “lack of detention space.”
Rochester Mayor Malik Evans, a Democrat, responded: “Once again, grandstanding of the Trump administration has been found to be without any legal legitimacy. The City of Rochester remains committed to guaranteeing public safety for all, not being coerced into doing the federal government’s work of immigration enforcement.”
The case was dismissed with prejudice, preventing the Department of Justice from refiled its complaint against Rochester. Geraci, appointed by President Obama in 2012, noted that seven out of the 10 safest cities in the U.S. cooperate with ICE.
