<p>CNN legal analyst Elie Honig said there was no hope for the city- and state-filed lawsuits against the federal government over the surge of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents and resources to states like Minnesota and Illinois.</p>
<p>Honig said that he&#8217;d read the lawsuits coming out of both blue states, and that they read more like &#8220;political diatribes&#8221; than lawsuits that any shot at achieving the demands presented within.</p>
<p><strong>WATCH:</strong></p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<p dir="ltr" lang="en">CNN’s Legal Analyst Elie Honig on the Minnesota and Illinois lawsuits against ICE: “They’re really political diatribes masquerading as lawsuits… 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… <a href="https://t.co/dAkIbuSbDp">pic.twitter.com/dAkIbuSbDp</a></p>
<p>— RedWave Press (@RedWave_Press) <a href="https://twitter.com/RedWave_Press/status/2011076616449822738?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 13, 2026</a></p></blockquote>
<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve read both the Minnesota and Illinois lawsuits,&#8221; he began. &#8220;They’re really political diatribes masquerading as lawsuits.&#8221;</p>
<p>&#8220;If you look at what both states are asking the courts to do, it&#8217;s to kick ICE out of those states and cities and to bar ICE from carrying on federal law enforcement in Illinois and Minnesota,&#8221; he continued. &#8220;That&#8217;s the top thing both states said 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.'&#8221;</p>
<p>Honig went on to say that the best case scenario — for the states in question — was that the states might get the courts to call for hearings and put a spotlight on the manner in which ICE was executing that law.</p>
<p>&#8220;If they get sympathetic judges, [they might get] 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,&#8221; he explained. &#8220;You also could have judges that issue sort of symbolic orders along the lines of, ICE, you are not to violate the law &#8212; 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.&#8221;</p>
<p>Host Kate Bolduan noted that Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison (D) had referred to the surge of ICE agents in his state as an &#8220;invasion&#8221; and asked Honig to weigh in on that characterization as well.</p>
<p>&#8220;I mean, it’s a powerful sort of rhetorical term. You heard a lot of things about an invasion and how horrible this is,&#8221; he replied. &#8220;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.&#8221;</p>
<p>He concluded by outlining the constitutional problem underlying the lawsuits, noting that any judge ruling in favor of either state would be in violation of the supremacy clause, &#8220;which says the federal government gets to carry out federal priorities and the states cannot stop them.&#8221;</p>

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Even CNN Analyst Destroys State Legal Attacks On ICE: ‘Political Diatribes Masquerading As Lawsuits’

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Even CNN Analyst Destroys State Legal Attacks On ICE: ‘Political Diatribes Masquerading As Lawsuits’