Boston Defeats Trump Challenge to Its Sanctuary Law

Boston’s sanctuary-city policy survived a challenge by the Trump administration that had claimed it amounted to illegal obstruction by limiting local cooperation with federal immigration operations.

“In Massachusetts, there is simply no source of authority empowering Boston police officers to do what the United States would like them to do,” US District Judge Leo T. Sorokin of the District of Massachusetts said in his Thursday ruling.

The dismissal of the Justice Department’s lawsuit extends the government’s losing streak in its campaign to upend local sanctuary jurisdiction policies. Federal officials say such policies make transferring noncitizens to federal custody more complicated and dangerous.

The administration has sued at least a dozen jurisdictions over the policies and, so far, lost cases against Illinois, Chicago, and Colorado.

In the Boston order, Sorokin dismissed the Justice Department lawsuit because a state high court ruling would independently stand in the way of local participation in federal immigration efforts.

“There is a fatal disconnect between the injury the United States alleges and the judicial relief it seeks,” Sorokin said.

Boston’s Trust Act, first enacted in 2015, limits information sharing by police and denies federal officers access to suspects in city custody who are thought to be in the country illegally.

The judicial backstop to that policy came from the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court’s holding that municipalities have no authority to honor civil detainer requests that immigration officials issue asking localities to detain people until they can be taken into custody by federal authorities.

Sorokin added that the administration instead could’ve attempted to achieve its goal of local cooperation with immigration enforcement by convincing the Supreme Judicial Court to overturn its ruling, by asking the state legislature to pass such a law, or petitioning Congress to enact legislation granting state officers the authority they lack in Massachusetts.

The judge also rejected the government’s claim to a sovereign injury caused by the mere existence of the local policy that clashes with federal priorities.

Representatives for the parties weren’t immediately available for comment on Sorokin’s ruling.

The city is represented by in-house attorneys and the Public Rights Project.

The case is US v. City of Boston, D. Mass., No. 1:25-cv-12456, order issued 5/28/26.