A sign on a Department of Justice building in downtown Washington D.C. (Stock photo by Douglas Rissing via Getty Images)
The Trump administration has lambasted the Washington attorney general’s lawsuit against a county for cooperating with federal immigration agents in violation of state law.
The latest development, based on a court filing from the U.S. Department of Justice last week, marks another escalation of tensions between the state and feds over immigration.
President Donald Trump’s Justice Department is asking a judge to side with Adams County as it faces litigation from Attorney General Nick Brown over the state’s “sanctuary” policy known as the Keep Washington Working Act.
“Washington asserts KWW is lawful, because it does not ‘impede’ federal officials from accomplishing their work,” DOJ senior litigation counsel J. Max Weintraub wrote. “But that is exactly what KWW was designed to do. And it has accomplished that end — actively facilitating aliens’ evasion of federal law in Washington.”
Weintraub argues that the federal Immigration and Nationality Act, enacted by Congress, preempts the Keep Washington Working Act. And he points to the Constitution’s supremacy clause that holds federal statutes “shall be the supreme Law of the Land.”
“KWW contravenes the Supremacy Clause for a host of independent reasons, and virtually at every turn,” Weintraub wrote.
Brown’s lawsuit against Adams County has also received a stiff rebuke from Republican members of Congress, including Rep. Michael Baumgartner, whose eastern Washington district includes part of the county.
In a letter, Baumgartner and two other Republican members of the House Judiciary Committee wrote the state “not only actively thwarts federal immigration enforcement, but it also targets local law enforcement officials for complying with federal law.”
Brown defended the law in a sharply-worded response last week and questioned why his lawsuit was getting such national attention.
Passed in 2019, the Keep Washington Working Act makes the state a so-called “sanctuary” for immigrants without legal status. President Donald Trump has floated punishing such cities and states, including through withheld federal funding.
On Thursday, a federal judge in California blocked the Trump administration from taking that kind of recourse over immigration enforcement. Seattle, which has a sanctuary policy of its own, is one of more than a dozen local governments that brought the case.
The state law mostly stops local police from helping federal authorities with immigration enforcement. For example, police can’t provide nonpublic personal information to federal authorities investigating civil immigration cases, and can’t interview or detain people solely based on questions about their immigration status.
Police also aren’t allowed to ask about their immigration status, except in rare cases.
In his lawsuit last month, Brown alleged the Adams County Sheriff’s Office flouted the law for years. He says deputies unlawfully jailed people based solely on immigration status, enabled federal immigration agents to question those in custody and shared confidential personal information of Washingtonians with federal officials.
In court filings, the county denied the state’s allegations, with arguments about the Keep Washington Working Act that mirror the DOJ.
In a Friday statement, Brown said the DOJ and Adams County employ “the same factually and legally incorrect arguments.”
“There is no conflict between Keep Washington Working and federal law, and we look forward to continuing to present our case in court,” the attorney general continued.
The complaint, initially filed in state court in Spokane County, has been moved to federal court. The attorney general is looking to move it back to state court because the case is focused on allegations regarding state law, not federal.
Adams County, home to around 20,000 people in southeast Washington, has retained lawyers from a firm founded by top Trump aide and immigration hawk Stephen Miller.