DOJ Sues Oregon Over Undercover License Plates | What It Means for Sanctuary Laws

Added: 2026-05-31

[00:00:00]What constitutional arguments is DOJ relying on in this lawsuit?

[00:00:05]>> So the Trump administration is relying upon the supremacy clause of the United States Constitution, which declares federal law to be supreme over state and local law. The US Supreme Court a long time ago in a case called McCulloch versus Maryland ruled that the supremacy clause prevents states from trying to interfere with state government. Excuse me, um the supremacy clause forbids the states from attempting to interfere with federal actions or administrative decisions.

[00:00:40]>> Right. Now, sorry about that. And can a state legally treat federal law enforcement differently than it treats its own law enforcement agencies or does the Constitution prohibit that?

[00:00:51]>> So in a long line of cases the US Supreme Court has said that the states may not discriminate against federal law enforcement officials with regards to taxing them or regulating them.

[00:01:04]But the Supreme Court has never extended that generally to state provided benefits. States, in my view, may withhold some benefits from federal law enforcement officers. To give you an example, just because the state provides guns and uniforms to Oregon State Police officers, doesn't mean that the state has to provide those guns and uniforms to federal law enforcement officers. The the is not discriminating against federal law enforcement for the state to refuse to provide its own assistance to federal law enforcement.

[00:01:40]>> Thank you for that. And if the federal government wins, what could that mean for Oregon's ability to regulate or place conditions on programs that involve federal agencies?

[00:01:48]>> If the federal government wins, it's going to be very difficult for Oregon to enforce its sanctuary law uh because any effort to try to that the state makes to try to distance itself from federal immigration enforcement will be met with the notion, well, in trying to distance yourself from it, you're discriminating against federal law enforcement and therefore violating the supremacy clause. So, I think people should be very much watching this litigation because how this litigation um uh ultimately concludes will give us real insight as to what must the state do in terms of uh helping ICE officers versus what can the state do to uh uh to prevent any assistance to federal immigration enforcement.

[00:02:36]>> Thank you. Yeah, my next question was going to be this lawsuit centers on license plates. Does it But does it have broader implications for the ongoing tension between state and federal government over immigration enforcement?

[00:02:47]>> Uh it very much does. It's It's about license plates, but it at root, it's about something more, which is how much assistance must the state provide uh federal law enforcement officers like ICE ICE agents. Uh the state has been sued by various immigration rights organizations and cities in the past couple of years claiming that those uh state police officers uh or uh Multnomah jail officials have been providing assistance to ICE in violation of state sanctuary law. And so, I think a lot of state and local officials feel themselves uh uh caught in a dilemma. On the one hand, if they provide assistance to ICE, allowing it access to the to county jails or uh allowing it to access state uh databases, that they'll be sued for violating the state sanctuary law. But if they don't provide access to the jails or the databases, they're going to be sued by the Trump administration for violating the supremacy clause. And so, this is a legal dilemma that is really flummoxing state and local officials here in Oregon and in other states. The Trump administration has sued Massachusetts and Washington to name just two other states for doing the same thing.

[00:04:06]>> And there was also a Supreme Court decision in 2022 that was cited in this lawsuit, US vs. Washington.

[00:04:13]Why is that in case important here and how might it influence the outcome?

[00:04:17]>> It's not clear that it's that it's important here. I mean, the supremacy clause forbids states from regulating federal law enforcement officers. That's why California's requirement that federal law enforcement officers not use masks as part of their their actions was struck down by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. The supremacy clause banned states from regulating how federal law enforcement officers do their job. That's not what Oregon's doing here. Oregon's not saying do your job this way or that way. It's simply saying we're not going to provide undercover license plates to you. You can use your own United States license plates obscuring their identity however you you want because Oregon has taken the position that all federal owned and operated motor vehicles are exempt from state state license plate laws. And so I think this current case is poses a different legal question than what we've confronted in the past.

[00:05:24]>> Thank you. And then just my last question for you is going to be obviously you're not directly involved in this, but how do you think this is going to progress going forward? Is this going to be a multi-year situation where we don't find out answers for quite a while? How how do you see this progressing?

[00:05:39]>> I think we'll have an initial decision from the federal district court in the next few weeks. The uh, administration is almost certain to ask for what's called a preliminary injunction uh, ordering the state to start issuing undercover license plates uh, immediately. Uh, they'll be briefing on that in the next uh, few weeks and I would expect we would have a decision on the preliminary injunction at some point this summer.