On 15 October 2026 U.S. District Judge Ramón E. Reyes Jr. of the Eastern District of New York granted New York City’s Rule 12(b)(6) motion and dismissed United States v. City of New York, No. 1:25-cv-04084 (ECF No. 79). The Clerk entered judgment for the defendants on 16 October (ECF No. 80). The Justice Department had sued on 24 July 2025. Defendants include the City, Mayor Zohran Mamdani, the City Council and Speaker Julie Menin, and the Correction, Probation and Police departments and their commissioners.

The suit targeted N.Y.C. Administrative Code §§ 9-131, 9-205, 14-154 and 10-178 and NYPD Operations Order No. 4. Under those rules, city jails, probation and police may honour a federal immigration detainer only with a judicial warrant, and only for people convicted of a “violent or serious crime” or flagged as a possible terrorist-watchlist match. The rules also bar spending city resources on federal civil immigration enforcement and limit what release information goes to federal agents. Information about a person’s citizenship or immigration status is exempted.

“Other actors, not this Court, hold the authority to grant the United States the redress it seeks,” the judge wrote — naming the New York legislature or Congress.

What the court held

  • No standing on detainers: New York law does not let state or local officers make civil immigration arrests or act on administrative warrants (People ex rel. Wells v. DeMarco, 2d Dep’t 2018). So striking the city provisions would not let officers hold people for ICE. The injury is not redressable.
  • No standing on information sharing: 8 U.S.C. § 1373 covers a person’s citizenship or immigration status, not release dates. The city rules exempt status information, so any § 1373 injury is not traceable to them.
  • Preemption fails anyway: Under Murphy v. NCAA, §§ 1373 and 1644 regulate governments, not private actors, so they cannot preempt. The express, field and conflict theories also fail. The court called the claimed conflicts “mere tensions.”
  • Anticommandeering: The court found that striking the provisions would effectively commandeer city resources. It declined to follow the Second Circuit’s 1999 City of New York decision as of questionable viability after Murphy, and found §§ 1373(a) and 1644 violate the Tenth Amendment’s anticommandeering doctrine.
  • Intergovernmental immunity fails: The rules do not directly regulate the federal government, and the discrimination claim fails for lack of a comparator.

Footnote 1 of the opinion lists about a dozen recent DOJ suits against state and local sanctuary provisions, including Illinois, New York State, Colorado, Boston, Los Angeles, Newark, Minnesota, Washtenaw County, Rochester and New Jersey. It says that “in all prior cases, the United States’ challenges to such provisions have been rejected.”

Citizen impact: For now, New York City’s rules stay in force. City jails and police will not hold someone for ICE on an administrative detainer alone, and ICE must make its own arrests after release unless it brings a judicial warrant for a covered person. Who gains: the city and residents who want local police kept out of civil immigration enforcement. Who pays: federal officers, who must make at-large arrests the complaint calls “difficult and dangerous”, and residents worried about release of removable people with criminal records who fall outside the city’s violent-or-serious-crime list. Under Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 4(a)(1)(B), the United States generally has 60 days from judgment to appeal to the Second Circuit.

What this piece refuses

Do not write that the court ruled ICE cannot operate in New York City, or that city officers are barred from sharing immigration-status information. The opinion says the city rules exempt status information and that federal agents can still make their own arrests. Do not write that the ruling binds other cities. It is one district court judgment, subject to appeal. Do not attribute an appeal decision to DOJ until a notice of appeal is filed.

Bottom line

Verified as of 19 October 2026 from the 25-page Memorandum & Order (ECF No. 79) and the Clerk’s judgment (ECF No. 80): the DOJ suit against New York City’s sanctuary provisions is dismissed for lack of standing and on the merits. Watch for a notice of appeal to the Second Circuit.