Trump administration sues four New Jersey cities over immigration cases

(Reuters) -The Trump administration announced on Friday that it had filed a lawsuit against four New Jersey cities, accusing them of being so-called sanctuary jurisdictions and obstructing federal immigration agents, according to court documents.

The suit, filed in federal court in New Jersey on Thursday, said Newark, Hoboken, Jersey City and Paterson along with the municipalities' city councils and mayors are breaking federal immigration law.

The local policies in the cities deny federal immigration agents access to undocumented immigrants in local custody, restrict local officers from handing over those in custody to federal agents and bar otherwise willing local officers from providing information to federal immigration authorities, the suit said.

"The express purpose and clear effect of these policies is to thwart federal immigration enforcement," the suit said, asking the judge in the case to bar the cities from enforcing these policies.

One of the defendants in the lawsuit, Hoboken Mayor Ravinder Bhalla, said in a statement his city will not "be commandeered" by federal agents to enforce federal immigration orders, especially those that violate the constitutional rights of its residents and non-resident visitors.

"Make no mistake about it - Hoboken will never aid Donald Trump’s inhumane treatment of law-abiding immigrants & residents," he wrote. "We will not back down."

Another defendant in the lawsuit, Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, was taken into custody on May 9 in a scuffle at the gate of a privately run federal immigration detention center during a visit by three members of New Jersey's congressional delegation. Days later, a misdemeanor charge of trespassing against the Democrat gubernatorial candidate was dropped.

In April, a federal judge blocked Donald Trump's administration from withholding federal funding from more than a dozen jurisdictions that have declined to cooperate with the Republican president's hardline immigration crackdown.



(Reporting by Brendan O'Brien in Chicago; editing by Diane Craft)