Federal Judge Tosses Trump Administration's Sanctuary City Lawsuit Against Minnesota

A federal judge in Minneapolis dismissed the Trump administration's lawsuit against Minnesota's sanctuary city policies on Monday, ruling the Tenth Amendment bars Washington from forcing state and local officials to enforce federal immigration law.

Chief U.S. District Judge Eric Tostrud issued a 56-page order rejecting the government's core argument that federal law preempts Minnesota's sanctuary statutes and ordinances, according to Courthouse News Service. Tostrud found the opposite: the challenged laws don't discriminate against federal agents, they just keep state resources out of federal immigration enforcement, which states are allowed to do.

"This statute does not require a state or any of its political subdivisions to enter into this type of agreement; these agreements are voluntary," Tostrud wrote, addressing the federal statute the Trump administration leaned on. He also ruled that immigration detainers, the requests federal agents send local jails asking them to hold someone for pickup, are just that. Requests. Not orders.

Minnesota, Minneapolis and St. Paul can keep declining to hold people on detainers alone without violating federal law, at least under this ruling.

Who Got Sued and Why

The Trump administration filed the original complaint in September 2025 against the state of Minnesota, Attorney General Keith Ellison, and the cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. The lawsuit targeted state laws limiting immigration agents' access to driver's license and vehicle registration data, plus city ordinances barring local police from enforcing federal immigration law.

The administration's argument rested on the Constitution's supremacy clause, claiming Minnesota's laws created illegal obstacles for federal agents and discriminated against the federal government by imposing restrictions not placed on other law enforcement agencies.

Tostrud didn't buy it. He ruled the driver's license data restrictions and the Twin Cities ordinances regulate local government operations broadly, not federal agents specifically. That's a critical distinction under the intergovernmental immunity doctrine, which does bar states from singling out the feds for special burdens, but doesn't stop states from setting neutral rules about what their own employees do with their own resources.

"The challenged laws and policies do not discriminate against the United States in the sense the intergovernmental immunity doctrine requires," Tostrud wrote.

A Trump Appointee Ruled Against Trump

Tostrud was appointed to the federal bench by Trump. Courthouse News Service noted his order was "measured" and stood out compared to some of his colleagues' recent rulings on similar sanctuary city cases nationwide.

This wasn't an Obama or Biden appointee blocking a Trump administration priority out of political reflex. A judge Trump himself put on the bench looked at the legal arguments and concluded the anti-commandeering doctrine, a well-established constitutional principle that says the federal government can't force states to carry out federal programs, killed the case.

The anti-commandeering doctrine isn't new or exotic. It's the same legal principle that's protected states from federal mandates across administrations and ideologies for decades, going back to Supreme Court rulings like Printz v. United States in 1997. Conservatives have relied on it plenty of times to fight federal overreach on gun laws and other issues. It cuts both directions.

The Administration's Actual Argument, Stated Fairly

The Trump administration's position isn't baseless. Immigration enforcement is a core, constitutionally assigned federal function, and the argument that sanctuary policies let dangerous criminals avoid deportation by shielding them from federal pickup is a real public safety concern, not manufactured outrage. The White House has repeatedly said cities and states that decline to cooperate with detainers are "harboring criminal offenders from federal law enforcement," language that appeared in the original complaint according to Courthouse News.

That's a legitimate policy argument. Whether it's a winning legal one is a separate question, and Tostrud's answer was no. The Tenth Amendment doesn't bend just because the underlying federal interest is significant. States can choose not to help, even if critics think that choice has real consequences.

What Happens Now

The dismissal is a loss for the Justice Department under Attorney General Pam Bondi, which brought the case as part of a broader nationwide push against sanctuary jurisdictions tied to Trump's border emergency declarations. It's unclear whether the administration will appeal to the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals. Neither MPR News nor Courthouse News Service reported an appeal timeline or statement from Bondi's office following the ruling.

Ellison, who was named as a defendant, has not yet issued a public statement captured in either source. The ruling leaves Minnesota's sanctuary policies intact for now, but the broader legal fight over sanctuary cities is playing out in multiple federal courts simultaneously. This single district court decision won't be the last word nationally.