United States Associate Attorney General

The Department of Justice has sued St. Paul, Minnesota, and Portland, Oregon, over city ordinances barring federal law enforcement officers — including ICE and Customs and Border Protection agents — from concealing their faces while on duty and requiring agency and name identification on their uniforms. The lawsuits argue the measures violate the Constitution's Supremacy Clause by unconstitutionally regulating federal officers and endangering officer safety and federal operations. These filings bring the DOJ's total challenges against such state and local laws to 11, including a recent suit against Denver.

Named defendants in the St. Paul case include the city, Mayor Kaohly Her, the St. Paul Police Department, Chief Axel Henry, and City Attorney Irene Kao. St. Paul's mask ban, passed in February, followed the end of the Trump administration's Minnesota immigration enforcement surge and came weeks after a masked ICE agent fatally shot U.S. citizen Renée Good in Minneapolis. Violations are misdemeanors in St. Paul, while Portland's ordinance, proposed in September 2025, allows civil enforcement. At least eight states and nine localities have enacted similar restrictions nationwide.

The U.S. Department of Justice has sued Arizona, Oregon, Washington and New Mexico over state laws granting in-state college tuition to immigrants without legal status, bringing the total number of states sued over such policies to 21. In Arizona, the challenged law is Proposition 308, a 2022 voter-approved measure allowing immigrants without legal status who attended an Arizona high school for at least two years to qualify for in-state rates. Oregon's 2013 Tuition Equity Act, which also covers veterans and lawful permanent residents, is likewise targeted, along with comparable statutes in Washington and New Mexico. The DOJ argues the policies violate a 1996 federal law by extending tuition benefits to immigrants without legal status that aren't equally available to out-of-state U.S. citizens.

The Arizona complaint cites estimates of over 3,600 immigrants without legal status potentially qualifying annually, with at least 720 already receiving in-state rates in fall 2025; in Oregon, an estimated 4,730 of 215,019 higher-education students are undocumented, with over 1,000 benefiting from the tuition program in 2023-24. The DOJ seeks court orders blocking enforcement. Federal courts have already struck down comparable laws in Texas, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Nebraska and Illinois, with a dozen more states, including California and New York, facing pending litigation; a Minnesota case was dismissed and is under appeal. Oregon and Washington officials have vowed to defend their laws; Arizona has not yet responded.