A federal judge in Newark has thrown out a Department of Justice lawsuit that targeted immigration-related policies in four New Jersey cities, dealing another legal blow to President Donald Trump’s administration in its ongoing battle against sanctuary jurisdictions.
U.S. District Judge Evelyn Padin issued the ruling Wednesday, dismissing the case the Justice Department had brought against the cities of Newark, Hoboken, Jersey City and Paterson. The lawsuit, filed in May 2025, accused those cities of blocking federal immigration enforcement through local policies that the DOJ argued violated the U.S. Constitution and were overridden by federal law.
Specifically, the Justice Department claimed the cities were preventing federal immigration agents from accessing immigrants held in local custody, stopping local officers from transferring people in custody to federal agents, and prohibiting officers who might otherwise be willing from sharing information with federal immigration authorities.
Judge Padin, who was appointed by Democratic President Joe Biden, found the government’s argument to be fundamentally flawed. She wrote that the DOJ’s case “has a fundamental flaw—it treats the challenged policies as though they operate in isolation.”
The judge pointed out that a statewide directive issued by New Jersey’s attorney general back in 2008 already limits how law enforcement agencies across the state — including those in cities — can cooperate with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, beyond what is legally required.
Because of that existing statewide policy, Padin concluded that even if the DOJ had won its case, the ruling would not have changed what municipal officers were permitted to do. The alleged harms cited by the Justice Department, she said, could not be resolved through this lawsuit alone.
The White House and the Justice Department did not respond to requests for comment. Representatives from Newark, Hoboken, Jersey City and Paterson either did not respond or had no immediate comment.
This dismissal is the latest in a string of court defeats for the Trump administration as it has sought to legally challenge policies adopted by Democrat-led sanctuary jurisdictions across the country.
