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The city of Rochester this week codified its sanctuary city policy. The step underscores the city’s resolve, but it may offer little protection against an administration determined to dismantle sanctuary measures nationwide and threaten the loss of federal funds.
Sanctuary cities have existed in the United States since the Reagan administration—City Council declared Rochester a “City of Sanctuary” in 1986—but they have come under attack by President Donald Trump. Executive orders have signaled his intention to compel jurisdictions to withdraw sanctuary status.
Sanctuary cities are jurisdictions that seek to protect the safety and well-being of all residents by limiting cooperation with federal immigration authorities, ensuring local resources remain focused on serving the community.
Rochester is not alone. It is among a group of cities, counties, and states that the federal government has targeted over the last several months, through lawsuits and threats.
The U.S. Department of Justice sued the city of Rochester in April as part of a nationwide effort to crack down on sanctuary municipalities. Similar lawsuits have been filed against New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago, featuring a key argument: that sanctuary policies discriminate against federal immigration enforcement in violation of the U.S. Constitution’s Supremacy Clause.
The Supremacy Clause establishes that the Constitution and federal law take precedence over conflicting state laws. While the federal government has used similar arguments in its lawsuits against sanctuary designations, they vary across cities, counties, and states. Cities like Chicago and New York explicitly refuse to detain individuals without a judicial warrant, and limit information sharing between local and federal agencies.
Rochester corporation counsel Patrick Beath’s initial response to the federal government’s lawsuit defends sanctuary policies under the 10th Amendment’s anti-commandeering doctrine: that the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution are reserved to the states.
“Sanctuary laws like Rochester’s are some of the clearest examples of policies protected by the anti-commandeering doctrine of the Constitution, and basically what that says is that the federal government is free to do what is within their power to do,” says Peter Markowitz, professor of law at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University in New York City. “What they are not free to do is to conscript states and localities to do their jobs for them.”
Rochester’s sanctuary policy, updated in 2017 to include the LGBTQIA+ community, affirmed that:
■ the Rochester Police Department shall not engage in activities solely for the purpose of federal immigration enforcement, including inquiring about or investigating and making arrests regarding the immigration status of an individual;
■ city personnel shall not inquire about or request proof of immigration status when providing services or benefits; and
■ the city shall not use its funds or personnel to enforce or assist in federal immigration enforcement.
The ordinance City Council approved this week codifies previous resolutions and provides additional protections. According to councilmembers, the sanctuary city ordinance:
■ empowers the city to engage in budgeting and policy making to provide material support to immigrants and LGBTQIA+ community members impacted by federal attacks and discrimination;
■ makes it unlawful for RPD to engage in activities solely for the purpose of immigration enforcement, therefore creating a legal course of action;
■ establishes a pathway for discipline and removal of city employees who violate sanctuary laws, including a process for investigation and public reporting;
■ prohibits the use of city personnel and resources for the purpose of federal immigration enforcement;
■ includes pregnancy, pregnancy outcomes, and reproductive autonomy as protected statuses, as outlined in the state Equal Rights Amendment;
■ affords equal rights to LGBTQIA+ individuals, including accessing school athletic activities and receiving full health care, including gender-affirming care;
■ bars the sharing of city records with federal authorities targeting people based on immigration status, gender identity, or reproductive choices; and
■ establishes that sanctuary city protections are now binding on all residents and businesses in the city, as they’re now codified into municipal code.
The City Council action comes as Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers have continued to make arrests in Rochester. Rochester Police Department officers directly aided ICE in a civil arrest in March. When border czar Tom Homan visited the Locust Club in defense of local law enforcement, his message to Rochester and Mayor Malik Evans was clear.
“End your sanctuary city policies,” Homan said. “Work with us on public safety threats and national security threats that are in the country illegally. Your number one responsibility is the protection of your communities.”
Taking action
Sanctuary city policies, John Harland Giammatteo contends, actually make communities safer.
“They’re policies that generally make communities safer by removing the concern for individuals within that community that they will be subject to immigration enforcement if, for instance, they report a crime or if they call the local police for some reason, either as a witness or as a victim of crime,” says Giammatteo, associate professor of law at the University of Buffalo School of Law. “The federal government is still free to do as much enforcement as it wants to do. It is free to use its resources for that.”
Studies continue to support an underlying motivation behind sanctuary jurisdictions: that they promote trust between immigrant communities and local law enforcement. A 2013 University of Illinois at Chicago survey of 2,004 Latino individuals living in Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, and Phoenix found that 44 percent of those surveyed said that increased local police involvement in immigration enforcement made them less likely to contact police officers if they were the victim of a crime for fear of inquiry into immigration status. Nearly half of those surveyed stated that they were less likely to report a crime or voluntarily offer information about it due to similar fears. And a 2017 study by the Center for American Progress concluded: “Crime is lower and economies are stronger in sanctuary counties compared to nonsanctuary counties.”
“What we have seen over and over again is that when police departments, local police departments, are engaged in routine immigration enforcement, immigrant communities are afraid to come forward as witnesses and victims of crime, and that becomes an impediment to the police department’s primary law enforcement duty,” adds Markowitz. “Getting entangled in immigration enforcement undermines public safety and undermines the work of local police departments, which is why so many jurisdictions with robust immigrant communities have enacted laws like these to create a clear boundary between police and federal immigration authorities.”
In July, New York Attorney General Letitia James filed an amicus curiae brief in defense of Rochester, arguing that the police power reserved to states and their localities is protected under the principle of federalism, which grants distinct authority and autonomy to state governments. James and Beath follow a similar argument, contending that the 10th Amendment prohibits Congress from conscripting local officers and resources to assist with federal immigration enforcement.
“(An amicus curiae) basically means a ‘friend of the court’ brief,” explains Giammatteo. “These briefs provide additional perspectives, useful information, and often, you know, the views of another entity that isn’t a party to the lawsuit formally, but still might have some interest in it.”
Related briefs have been filed by the Immigration Reform Law Institute in support of the federal government, while the Ibero-American Action League, New Hope Free Methodist Church, Third Presbyterian Church, and Western New York Coalition of Farmworker Serving Agencies have submitted an amicus brief in defense of Rochester.
“I think it’s helpful to have the (state) attorney general on the side of Rochester … both Rochester and the attorney general’s arguments are quite strong,” says Giammatteo. “Sanctuary city policies are about that sovereignty within the state and locality, rather than instructing federal immigration officials to do one thing or the other. … It’s helpful to have New York on that, on the side of the defendants.”
While the trajectory of Rochester’s lawsuit remains unclear, U.S. District Judge Lindsay Jenskins dismissed a similar suit against Illinois, Cook County, and Chicago, arguing their sanctuary policies are protected under the 10th Amendment’s anti-commandeering doctrine.
“This is not the first time the federal government and the Trump administration has attempted to unlawfully undermine local sanctuary laws and policies,” says Markowitz. “They’re going to continue to lose over and over again, because sanctuary policies rely upon the bedrock principle in our Constitution that the federal government cannot draft states and localities into the federal government service. … I would expect that (Rochester’s) lawsuit would be similarly resolved in that way in the coming months.”
The ruling in Chicago remains the first setback in the Justice Department’s lawsuits against sanctuary policies. It has not altered the federal government’s efforts to end the use of sanctuaries nationwide.
The federal threat
In August, the Justice Department published an updated list of sanctuary cities, counties, and states, aiming to identify and pressure local governments to withdraw their policies. That threat has grown substantially with a letter sent by Attorney General Pam Bondi to officials in various sanctuary jurisdictions, including Evans.
The letter, arguing that sanctuary policies obstruct federal immigration enforcement, references Executive Order 14287 in directing the attorney general to evaluate federal funding that could be withheld from Rochester should it not withdra w its policy. Bondi’s letter also states that individuals using their official position to obstruct federal immigration enforcement may be subject to criminal charges, and gives Evans and other officials across the nation a deadline to comply: Aug. 19.
That deadline has passed, with little noise from Bondi or the Justice Department. A response from Beath further affirms the arguments made in the city’s lawsuit, before raising concerns of ethical violations against the attorney general for contacting Evans without consulting counsel beforehand.
“Given this pending litigation, you—as counsel for the government of the United States—should have no direct communication with my clients without my prior permission,” wrote Beath. “The City intends to continue to fully comply with federal law while vigorously preserving its local autonomy and rights under the Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.”
“I completely agree with the city’s letter,” says Lenni Benson, distinguished chair in immigration and human rights law at the New York Law School. “This DOJ is not behaving with the limits and traditions of most prior administrations, from Reagan to Trump’s first (term). This was a clear ethical violation due to the pending litigation.”
In Printz v. United States, a case decided in 1997, the Supreme Court held that the federal government could not issue directives requiring state governments to address particular problems, nor command their officers to administer federal regulatory programs. However, a decade earlier, the court ruled in South Dakota v. Dole that Congress could attach conditions to federal funds to encourage cooperation. The amount of conditional funding, however, could not be disproportionate or coercive.
“We’re seeing a pattern across multiple different subject areas where the Trump administration is attempting to use statutes and authorities in sort of new ways to both outwardly threaten entities, whether governments, organizations, or museums, with the threat of legal sanction,” says Giammatteo, “but also try to attempt to scare (them) into complying with the political objectives of the Trump administration.”
Bondi’s letter is not the first time the Trump administration has threatened to withhold federal funding from sanctuary jurisdictions. The president’s first term saw a similar executive order challenged and thwarted by a lawsuit from the city and county of San Francisco.
Last week, U.S. District Judge William Orrick issued a preliminary injunction preventing the federal government from following through on its threat to withhold funding. Preliminary injunctions—a form of temporary court order—only serve to prevent irreparable harm from happening before the court reaches a final decision on a lawsuit.
“It’s a good sign if you can get a preliminary injunction,” explains Giammatteo, “but it might not (be) the final word.”
Funds at stake
Should the Trump administration be successful in its lawsuit against Rochester, the city would stand to lose over $81 million in federal funding, most of which comes from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. While the city’s most recent annual comprehensive financial report indicates it received the largest proportion of funding from COVID-19-related relief, no new awards were issued in 2025. Without that, the city’s primary source of federal funding falls under the Community Development Block Grants, which are used to develop affordable housing.
The city’s use of CDBG grants and other HUD funding is detailed in annual action plans as well as five-year consolidated planning documents. The final 2020-2024 Consolidated Plan states funding is intended to provide low- and moderate-income households with viable communities. Eligible activities include housing rehabilitation and preservation, affordable housing development, and community facilities and improvements. An estimated 70 percent of funds go toward these activities
Similar threats have been levied against Monroe County after County Executive Adam Bello announced the county’s participation in a lawsuit against the federal government over the potential loss of $9 million in grant funding over DEI policies.
“Enough is enough,” said Bello during an Aug. 21 press conference. “Monroe County is not going to be put in a position where we’re either going to lose millions of dollars in infrastructure dollars that go to our airport, or dismantle perfectly legal programs that are constitutional, that we’re allowed to have, that are actually working, and that were created in a bipartisan, unanimous way.”
“This type of threat is more like dark periods in our history,” Benson observes, comparing the threats leveled by the federal government to similar attempts to scare the public into coercion during the Red Scare and Cold War era. “These are not moments of pride.”
Evans’ office and City Council President Miguel Meléndez declined to comment.
The response
While Boston and Chicago’s mayors have responded to the Trump administration in full-throated defense of their sanctuary city policies, Evans has remained silent on the issue since a press conference held after the March incident with RPD officers. That response has angered community advocates who seek greater accountability and transparency from their local leaders.
“I would like to see our City Council and our mayor be a lot more vocal in their defense of our immigrant communities, because we have such strong immigrant communities here,” says LGBTQ+ rights advocate Mickey Di Perna. “It’s just a matter of are they willing to put their money where their mouth is? Are they willing to stand up to Trump? Are they willing to go an extra mile for their community?”
Di Perna has been a primary influence on strengthened legislation that would codify sanctuary protections for immigrant and LGBTQ+ communities, developing the bill alongside progressive City Councilmembers Kim Smith, Mary Lupien, and Stanley Martin. Di Perna joined Martin last week in a public meeting to discuss the ramifications of the bill and provide context for the federal government’s opposition.
“In order for any of this to ever take effect, it’s never going to be by the goodwill of people in office,” said Martin last week. “It’s going to have to be through public pressure.”
The motivation behind codifying protections was heightened after the March incident and garnered vocal public support in the months leading up to Tuesday’s vote. A rally held last week before August’s Speak to Council session saw a variety of speakers and advocates call on their councilmembers to defend their community by passing an ordinance that would both provide financial support to affected immigrant and LGBTQ+ communities and give Council the power to investigate and discipline city officials who violate sanctuary policies.
“Rochester needs to do everything it can to strengthen the sanctuary city ordinance. That’s not going to end the fear of people in our city who feel the targets on their backs, but it will show them that they’re not alone. That this city won’t abandon them,” said Marie Evans at the Speak to Council session. “We all need to reject the normalization of government terror. Refusal to resist what’s happening isn’t caution, it’s collaboration.”
Tuesday saw the body unanimously vote to strengthen protections—a key victory for the progressive caucus of Council and associated advocacy organizations that helped author the final version of the bill. With an amendment and input from the New York Civil Liberties Union, sanctuary protections now move from a citywide policy to a codified ordinance that is enforceable.
“I think this happened because of movement building,” said Martin after Tuesday’s vote. “We had the immigrant groups, we had folks supporting LGBTQ rights, and we had folks who just organized for the general well-being of our community. And it happened because everyone came together, including Council.”
In support of the legislation Tuesday evening, Meléndez affirmed that Rochester’s decision to strengthen its sanctuary protections—a decision that has come with significant legal hurdles—represents a statement of values.
“I’ve been asked why the Latino community hasn’t been more vocal locally. The truth is, people are vocal every day, though not always in public spaces,” said Meléndez. “Tonight I have the privilege of speaking in a public space on their behalf. We are doing this because it matters. It is important for our community to know where their elected leaders stand.”
It is unclear how the ordinance will affect the federal government’s lawsuit against the city. Yet the choice to strengthen sanctuary protections, for Markowitz, represents a commitment to community.
“There’s an element of some states and localities seeing the kind of misguided, brutal and inhumane nature of federal immigration enforcement today and saying, ‘We won’t be a party to this’,” says Markowitz. “It is devastating our communities. It is devastating our families. It is leaving children without parents. It is leaving businesses without workers. And it is sending human beings into some of the most brutal foreign kind of torture prisons that exist on earth today. And there are communities and local jurisdictions that have said, ‘We refuse to be a party to that.’”
New York School of Law’s Benson notes that it is clear that Rochester does not aim to impede the activities of the Department of Homeland Security or thwart federal immigration enforcement altogether.
“The AG and others can try to misdirect public attention to the cities that are not patrolling the streets with ICE and CBP,” says Benson. “But that is a false story, and a dangerous one.”
The escalation in arrests, military mobilization and lawsuits, Benson believes, is part of a larger approach: terrifying the population into submission, whether through voluntary departure or otherwise. Should the federal government be successful, it would not be unlikely to request that RPD begin to arrest individuals for immigration violations, or always respond to specific questions DHS asks.
“This suit against Rochester is part of the desire to create an intimidated community,” says Benson. “(The) people of Rochester should be proud of their city and state for acting calmly and carefully.”
Narm Nathan is a Rochester Beacon contributing writer and a member of the Oasis Project’s inaugural cohort.
The Beacon welcomes comments and letters from readers who adhere to our comment policy including use of their full, real name. See “Leave a Reply” below to discuss on this post. Comments of a general nature may be submitted to the Letters page by emailing [email protected].
Maybe….just maybe, this city should look at its education system. Maybe….,just maybe it could address the decades of failure to educate! Then consider following the law. And if you don’t like that law there is a process for changing it. If the sanctuary sign holders could hold up the signs for the kids that are failing and or dropping out, maybe just maybe we would graduate kids with a relevant education. Instead you want to open up the city to “immigrants” and have them join the failing ranks. How is that fair to them. Apparently living in a city that fails kids at a record rate is the sign holders mission. Rochester is a sick city, which is in dire need to finally embrace education. Address the generational poverty, the child poverty, the youth crime, the drugs the gangs and….need I go on?! Semper Fi.
If you are in this country illegally and do not have the proper papers nor have you even filed for them or attempted to seek assistance to get them then you should not be in this country. Even Mexico does not allow undocumented people to stay in Mexico. Almost every country requires a person to have legal status to reside there, and for non-citizens, this typically means proof of identity and a valid visa or residency permit to demonstrate their legal right to stay. It is a shame that people are so divided on this issue and refuse to see both sides of the coin. I understand where people are coming from regarding sanctuary but I do not agree except for the circumstances mentioned above. I believe it burdens states economically, employers can exploit immigrants not documented and we need to protect our country from people entering that are dangerous to name a few reasons. Whether we agree or not, laws prevent chaos, we can’t always agree. I know there will be nasty comments from people who have no clue of who I am and it doesn’t matter to them because they are fueled by hate toward anyone who disagrees with them but yet they profess to love everyone.
Don’t know who you are and don’t care. What I do care about is your apparent acceptance of Trump’s gestapo methods for dealing with individuals who may, or may not, be here illegally. I do care about the indifference of you, and others like you, who condone the virtual concentration camps for individuals whose only crime was seeking a better life for their family. And I care about your reckless use of the Trumpian accusations of, “we need to protect our country from people entering that are dangerous” when we all know that only an infinitesimal percentage of illegal aliens are any danger at all. In fact far, far, far less of a danger than our home-grown, armed fanatics, fanatics of the Jan. 6 ilk.
But I DID enjoy the hypocrisy of a Trumpublican accusing others of being haters when, as the saying goes, “You can’t spell HATRED without RED HAT.”
Do you have ANYTHING other than “hate Trump”? You know I was in management at the director level in medical imaging. One of my missions, team building. You know how we did that? We had monthly meetings and you could bring up ANYTHING no matter how small. There was one condition….you needed to follow up that issue, that complaint, that concern with a SOLUTION. I hear the bitching and the bashing. What I don’t hear is the solution. Try posting solution based responses. I dare you!
SEMPER FI.
Thanks for the feedback Josh. Always entertaining to read a cultist’s version of reality and their excuses for your Felon-in-Chief.
But let’s address some of your points. First is team-building. My take on that topic is that all sides need to be committed to the process and to compromise. If it’s not too
“hateful”, I submit that Trump’s record makes clear that he has zero interest in any form of compromise. Or of hearing any facts which disagree with his bias and the lies he tells himself. And his sheep. Proof of this can be seen in his pre-election demand that an immigration bill agreed to by the Democratic and Republican “teams” be shelved because it weaken his claims that Democrats were doing nothing about illegal immigration. Add to that his recent firing of the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics because the numbers put out by BLS didn’t fit his narrative. Were those the actions of a “team player”?
As to the “solution”, that’s as subjective a term as “team building”. Both parties are offering what they see as “solutions” (although there’s a wide difference of opinion on what the “problems” are). But given that the Trumpublican Party has control of the federal government and, as shown above, refuses to negotiate or even listen to the Democrats, saying that someone may not criticize Donny unless “solutions” are offered is too hypocritical to be taken seriously.
But by all means, label as “haters”, those who dare to criticize the most criminal, vulgar, ill-bred, egomaniacal, selfish, sexist, spiteful, tacky, demagogic AND hateful individual ever to disgrace the White House. Apparently that’s the only way Trump’s supporters can live with themselves. And the only way veterans can justify their support for a man who (in the words of former Sec. Of Homeland Security, former White House Chief-of-Staf and retired four star Marine Corps general John Kelly) called wounded, killed or captured service personnel “suckers” and “losers”.
Sanctuary cities are one of the MANY reasons that Democrats have been relegated to impotence and irrelevancy by the Trumpublican Party. As with almost all “progressive” movements, proponents of sanctuary cities are seeking bragging rights for moral purity at the cost of political power. Unlike the Trumpsters, who understand that without such political power nothing can be accomplished, “progressives” would rather be right than president, senator or congressperson. Blinded by their desire to emulate the actions of states and municipalities who passed personal liberty laws as a means of opposing the federal Fugitive Slave Law, today’s “progressives have totally missed the points that, 1) the connection between fugitive slaves and illegal imigrants is tenuous at best, and 2) by pushing for sanctuary cities at a time when the electorate is becoming increasingly conservative they are harming rather than helping those immigtamts, as well as every other traditional liberal cause. Trump and his stooges now control the entire federal government, including the Supreme Court. What in hell anyone thinks can be accomplished by continuing to stand on the deck of the sinking ship SS Santuary Cities evades me.