An Obama-appointed federal judge in Rochester, New York just handed the open-borders Left another win, tossing the Trump administration’s lawsuit against the City of Rochester’s sanctuary policies and slamming the door on the case with prejudice.
Senior U.S. District Judge Frank P. Geraci Jr. granted Rochester’s motion to dismiss on Tuesday and tossed the Justice Department’s amended complaint with prejudice, preventing the administration from simply revising and refiling the case in the same court.
Geraci also denied the Trump administration’s motion for summary judgment as moot.
Geraci was nominated to the federal bench by Barack Obama in 2012 and assumed senior status in 2023.
The Justice Department filed the lawsuit in April 2025 against Rochester, Democrat Mayor Malik Evans, the Rochester City Council, and Council President Miguel Meléndez Jr.
The administration argued that Rochester’s sanctuary policies intentionally obstruct federal immigration enforcement, unlawfully discriminate against federal authorities, and violate the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause.
The policies prohibit city personnel from using local resources to assist federal civil immigration enforcement except where specifically required by law.
Rochester police are also restricted from asking about immigration status, honoring civil immigration detainers, assisting ICE in taking certain individuals into custody, or cooperating with ICE, Customs and Border Protection, and Homeland Security Investigations without specific authorization.
The dispute erupted after Rochester police responded to an emergency request for assistance from federal agents during a March 24, 2025, traffic stop.
Ten Rochester officers reportedly assisted federal agents in removing three Guatemalan nationals from a van and taking them into custody.
Mayor Evans and Police Chief David Smith subsequently accused the officers of violating the city’s sanctuary policy and ordered them to undergo additional training.
One of the men, Wilson Oswaldo Galvan-Lopez, had previously been deported in 2023. He later pleaded guilty to illegally reentering the United States and was turned over to ICE.
Yet Rochester’s Democrat leaders treated the local officers, not the illegal alien who unlawfully returned to the country, as the problem.
In his ruling, Geraci rejected the Justice Department’s argument that two federal information-sharing statutes, 8 U.S.C. §§ 1373 and 1644, override Rochester’s policies.
Geraci concluded that the statutes could not preempt local law because they regulate state and local government entities rather than private individuals.
“There is no way to read §§ 1373 or 1644 as regulating anyone other than states and their political subdivisions,” Geraci wrote.
The judge also ruled that the administration failed to establish that Rochester’s policies unlawfully discriminate against the federal government.
According to Geraci, the city’s decision to withhold local assistance from ICE merely “decline[s] to ease the burden of civil immigration enforcement” and does not impose an unconstitutional burden on Washington.
Geraci further concluded that Rochester’s policies regulate only the conduct of city officials, not federal immigration agents themselves.
“They do not dictate how the federal government must act,” the judge wrote.
The court denied the Justice Department another opportunity to amend its complaint, noting that the administration had already been permitted to revise the lawsuit after Rochester expanded and codified its sanctuary protections in 2025.
Rochester’s original sanctuary policy dates back to 1986. The city reaffirmed it in 2017 and strengthened it while the federal litigation was underway.
Mayor Evans gloated over the ruling Wednesday, accusing the Trump administration of “grandstanding” and insisting that Rochester would not be “coerced into doing the federal government’s work of immigration enforcement.”
It remains unclear whether the Justice Department will appeal Geraci’s ruling to the Second Circuit.
🚨JUST IN🚨
A Obama-appointed federal judge DISMISSED the Trump administration’s lawsuit against Rochester, New York, over the city’s sanctuary policies.
Judge Frank P. Geraci Jr. found those policies do not improperly obstruct federal immigration enforcement.
The court also… pic.twitter.com/wS24oIYTGk
— Breanna Morello (@BreannaMorello) September 2, 2026
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