CNN’s Elie Honig Dumps All Over States Fighting Trump ICE ‘Invasion’ in Court: ‘Political Diatribes Masquerading as Lawsuits’

CNN senior legal analyst Elie Honig torpedoed the state legal cases against President Donald Trump’s ICE crackdown, calling them “political diatribes masquerading as lawsuits.”

The state of Minnesota and the cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul sued the Trump administration over what they call a “federal invasion” by deportation forces.

The lawsuits, filed Monday amid outrage over the Renee Good killing, cite the 10th Amendment in opposition to the administration’s so-called “Operation Metro Surge.”

On Tuesday’s edition of CNN News Central, anchor Kate Bolduan asked Honig if the states have a strong case. His answer was a definitive “no”:

KATE BOLDUAN: Elie, let’s focus in on the Minnesota lawsuit. What do you see in it? Do you see, do you think it is a strong case?

ELIE HONIG: No, I don’t, Kay. I’ve read both the Minnesota and Illinois lawsuits. They’re really political diatribes masquerading as lawsuits.

If you look at what both states are asking the courts to do, it’s to kick ICE out of those states and cities and to bar ICE from carrying on federal law enforcement in Illinois and Minnesota. That’s the top thing both states ask to do and they cite zero precedent for that. There is zero precedent for that.

There is no way a judge can say. You, federal law enforcement agency, you are not allowed to execute federal law in a certain state or city. I think the most that the states could get out of this, if they get sympathetic judges, is a judge who’s going to ask questions of ICE, who’s gonna hold hearings, who is to demand questions about how they’re training, how they are carrying out their policy.

You also could have judges that issue sort of symbolic orders along the lines of, ICE, you are not to violate the law, but that’s already the case. It’s already not allowed for ICE to violate the law.

So these lawsuits, which appear to be coordinated, they’re potentially powerful political statements, but I don’t give them much of a chance of achieving the legal thing that they’re asking for in the courts.

KATE BOLDUAN: One thing we heard over and over from Keith Ellison, the attorney general of Minnesota, was that this is a federal invasion of their state. What’s kind of the legalese that they’re trying to lean on there?

ELIE HONIG: There is no legalese to that. I mean, it’s a powerful sort of rhetorical term. You heard a lot of things about an invasion and how horrible this is.

Even if every allegation made in both complaints is true, and we don’t know that, it doesn’t necessarily give them a constitutional legal remedy here.

And by the way, to be specific about why there’s a constitutional problem here. If a judge were to say to ICE, you can’t enforce the law in Minnesota or Illinois–.

It would violate the supremacy clause, which says the federal government gets to carry out federal priorities and the states cannot stop them.

Watch above via CNN News Central.

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