Gabrielle Lord, Contributing Photographer

A Justice Department memo leaked last week raised the possibility that local officials may face legal repercussions if they cross the Trump administration’s planned deportations.

But New Haven leaders say they will protect the city’s undocumented immigrants as far as possible on solid legal footing — under a “welcoming city” order that restricts cooperation with federal immigration enforcement beyond what state or federal laws mandate.

“I’m not worried because we’re following the law,” Mayor Justin Elicker told the New Haven Independent after the memo leaked last week. “We are not preventing the federal government from doing the work in our community, but we’re not going to participate in it, because we have a lot of things to focus on.”

Legal experts who spoke with the News agreed that city leaders can in general decline to assist in the federal immigration crackdown without obstructing it. Two former federal prosecutors said the memo resembled typical policy directives to set new priorities under a new president, even if the suggestion of prosecuting local officials departs from past practices.

“The federal government is not commandeering, and generally doesn’t have the power to commandeer, local and state resources into their federal enforcement work, unless those jurisdictions voluntarily decide to put their local tax dollars to do that,” said Liam Brennan, a former federal prosecutor in Connecticut who now leads New Haven housing code enforcement.

However, Brennan said, the federal government could still try to pressure cities to help with deportations by holding up routine collaboration between federal and local law enforcement agencies.

President Donald Trump has threatened to withhold funding from municipalities, sometimes called sanctuary cities, that do not provide information or other aid to federal immigration enforcers. He made similar threats during his first term, when then-Mayor Toni Harp boycotted a White House event with Trump to protest a Justice Department letter to other sanctuary cities.

Trump’s budget office on Monday attempted to broadly freeze spending on loans and grants, a move that was temporarily put on hold by a federal judge on Tuesday before it could go into effect.

Last week’s three-page Justice Department memo, dated Jan. 21 and sent to department employees by acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove, raises two possible ways to target sanctuary cities: criminal investigations of officials who impede federal enforcement, “for potential prosecution,” and lawsuits to challenge state and local policies on the constitutional grounds that federal law supersedes them.

Stanley A. Twardy Jr., who served as the U.S. attorney in Connecticut during the Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush ’48 administrations, echoed the new memo’s language to explain how city officials can steer clear of legal trouble.

“As long as they do not obstruct or impede ICE in what they’re doing, they’ll be okay,” Twardy said, referring to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, although difficult questions could arise regarding communication between the different levels of government. “It depends on how it plays out. You know, failing to provide is different than providing false information.”

Elicker’s spokesperson wrote in a statement to the News that New Haven policy does not risk violating the law because it forbids municipal employees from asking for or disclosing residents’ immigration statuses “unless required by state or federal law.”

In the lead-up to Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration, Police Chief Karl Jacobson retrained officers on how to interact with federal immigration authorities. 

Following guidance from the state’s Police Officer Standards and Training Council, Jacobson instructed officers not to assist federal immigration authorities in detaining undocumented immigrants unless the authorities have a criminal warrant, he said. These warrants differ from administrative warrants, which are solely based on someone’s undocumented status and do not involve criminal charges.

“Say the feds want to go to a school and take kids out of school. We can’t interfere with that, because that’s against the law for us to do that,” Jacobson said. “But are we going to go to the school and help them take children out of the school? Absolutely not.”

Michael Wishnie ’87 LAW ’93, a Yale Law School professor and immigration attorney, said he doesn’t see “any good basis whatsoever” for city officials to be prosecuted over New Haven’s immigration policies. 

He alluded to Supreme Court precedent — such as in New York v. United States and Printz v. United Statesthat bars the U.S. government from forcing local governments to execute federal policies, like immigration law.

Jacobson stressed the importance of New Haven’s status as a “welcoming city” in preserving the police’s relations with the immigrant community.

“We want undocumented people to feel comfortable with the police,” he said. “If people feel you’re going to ask them for their documentation, they’re not going to report crimes.”

Marc H. Silverman LAW ’06 has been the interim U.S. attorney for the District of Connecticut since Vanessa Roberts Avery, an appointee of former President Joe Biden, resigned just before Trump took office.

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MAIA NEHME
Maia Nehme covers cops, courts and Latine communities for the News. She previously covered housing and homelessness. Originally from Washington, D.C., she is a sophomore in Benjamin Franklin College majoring in History.
ETHAN WOLIN
Ethan Wolin covers City Hall and local politics. He is a sophomore in Silliman College from Washington, D.C.