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

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.

Honig said that he’d read the lawsuits coming out of both blue states, and that they read more like “political diatribes” than lawsuits that any shot at achieving the demands presented within.

WATCH:

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… pic.twitter.com/dAkIbuSbDp

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“I’ve read both the Minnesota and Illinois lawsuits,” he began. “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,” he continued. “That’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.'”

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.

“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,” he explained. “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.”

Host Kate Bolduan noted that Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison (D) had referred to the surge of ICE agents in his state as an “invasion” and asked Honig to weigh in on that characterization as well.

“I mean, it’s a powerful sort of rhetorical term. You heard a lot of things about an invasion and how horrible this is,” he replied. “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.”

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, “which says the federal government gets to carry out federal priorities and the states cannot stop them.”