Federalism

Although a federal judge declined to issue a preliminary injunction requested by Minnesota and the Twin Cities, the plaintiffs should still prevail on their claims that the federal government’s actions there are unconstitutional.

Ilya Somin | 2.2.2026 6:28 PM

This article is cross-posted (with permission) from the Brennan Center State Court Report website, where it was originally published; it builds in part on my earlier article about this case, published in Lawfare. Below is the new Brennan Center article:

Federal district court Judge Katherine Menendez issued a ruling Saturday denying a motion for a preliminary injunction blocking the deployment of thousands of ICE and other federal agents to the Twin Cities.

Minnesota and the cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul filed an important lawsuit on January 12 arguing that Operation Metro Surge, as the Trump administration refers to the mass federal deployment, violates the 10th Amendment. They argue that the administration is using the deployment to try to coerce them into giving up their "sanctuary" laws, which restrict state and local assistance to federal immigration enforcement. They also say the administration's actions have disrupted state and local government functions, including the state constitutional guarantee to education and the ability of state and local law enforcement to address crime and protect Minnesotans' safety — which is "one of the most basic rights reserved to the States and their municipalities" in our federalist system.

Preliminary rulings like the one that came down this weekend often presage the court's decision on the merits. But, unusually, the judge emphasized that her decision doesn't necessarily foreshadow a final ruling for the federal government, and that it is instead based on her uncertainty about some key issues. The ultimate outcome of the case remains unclear, especially since any decision reached by the district court will almost certainly be appealed. But the suit deserves to prevail; a contrary decision would set a dangerous precedent.

The 10th Amendment states that "powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." In Federalist 28, Alexander Hamilton assured readers that: "It may safely be received as an axiom in our political system, that the State governments will, in all possible contingencies, afford complete security against invasions of the public liberty by the national authority." He emphasized that they can use their control of "the organs of the civil power" to "adopt a regular plan of opposition." Minnesota's resistance to oppressive — and, likely, illegal — federal policies is an example of such "opposition," and the 10th Amendment protects the state and its local governments against federal usurpation of their authority over their own employees and resources.

A series of Supreme Court decisions primarily supported by conservative justices, such as New York v. United States (1992), Printz v. United States (1997), and Murphy v. NCAA (2018), hold that the federal government cannot "commandeer" state and local officials to do the federal government's bidding or to help enforce federal laws. And in multiple decisions during the first Trump administration and continuing in the second, numerous lower federal........

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