The Tenth Amendment Limit: When Federal Agents Can’t Commandeer Local Police

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Minnesota accumulated 3,000 overtime hours in four days responding to federal immigration enforcement. On January 12, 2026, Attorney General Keith Ellison filed a federal lawsuit arguing that the Department of Homeland Security had crossed a constitutional line—not by ordering Minnesota police to enforce immigration law, but by conducting operations so chaotic and aggressive that local cops had no choice but to respond.

Between January 8 and January 11, Minneapolis police officers logged more than 3,000 hours of overtime dealing with the fallout from “Operation Metro Surge.”

What were officers doing during those overtime hours? Responding to 911 calls from residents who couldn’t tell whether federal agents detaining someone on their street were legitimate law enforcement or kidnappers. Managing crowds that formed when federal operations triggered community protests. Towing abandoned vehicles that federal agents left blocking traffic after detaining the drivers.

The Anti-Commandeering Doctrine

The Tenth Amendment states: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” The Supreme Court has developed a legal principle called the anti-commandeering doctrine—Washington cannot force states to use their resources for federal purposes. The doctrine means the federal government cannot order state legislatures to pass laws, cannot force state police to enforce federal programs, cannot make state officials work for federal programs, even when federal law is perfectly legitimate and the federal objective falls squarely within constitutional authority.

Federal agents weren’t ordering Minneapolis police to help with immigration enforcement. They were operating in ways that made local response inevitable.

Federal Operations at Sensitive Locations

Federal agents conducted enforcement operations at schools, churches, hospitals, and courthouses—locations where both federal policy tradition and state law had historically limited immigration enforcement. When agents showed up at a school, the school went into lockdown. When they operated near a hospital, emergency protocols kicked in. When enforcement happened at a church, the institution faced disruptions it didn’t choose and costs it didn’t budget for.

The lawsuit documents specific categories of forced response: residents calling 911 because they couldn’t tell whether people being detained were being arrested by legitimate federal agents or kidnapped by criminals—federal agents were operating with masked faces and concealed identification; officers managing crowd control when community members protested federal actions; police relocating vehicles federal agents abandoned on public streets after detaining the occupants. Each incident generated costs the city wouldn’t have incurred otherwise and pulled officers away from work city taxpayers expected them to do.

The Fatal Shooting and Escalation

On January 7, 2026, ICE agent Jonathan Ross shot and killed Renee Good, a 37-year-old mother of three and U.S. citizen, during an enforcement operation in Minneapolis.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Good had “attacked” ICE agents and “attempted to run them over,” describing her actions as “domestic terrorism.” Minneapolis Mayor Frey, reviewing video footage, called the administration’s account “bullshit” and told ICE to “get the fuck out of Minneapolis.”

Rather than pulling back after the fatal shooting, DHS announced it would deploy approximately 1,000 additional Customs and Border Protection agents to the Twin Cities. From the state’s perspective, that looked less like law enforcement and more like federal retaliation against a city that had publicly opposed the operation. The lawsuit followed five days later.

The Retaliation Claim

Beyond the Tenth Amendment argument, the lawsuit advances a First Amendment theory. Attorney General Ellison alleges that Operation Metro Surge was motivated not primarily by immigration enforcement priorities but by a desire to punish Minnesota for its political opposition to Trump administration policies.

Homeland Security Secretary Noem targeted Governor Tim Walz and Mayor Frey by name, suggesting they had “politicized” the situation. Minnesota’s undocumented immigrant population is lower than the national average—an unusual basis for targeting Minnesota if the operation were genuinely driven by immigration enforcement priorities rather than political considerations. The administration’s stated justification—targeting alleged fraud in state welfare programs involving Somali-American immigrants—struck officials as a false reason hiding the real motivation.

If the operation was designed to retaliate against Minnesota for political opposition—for accurately reporting election results, for maintaining policies that limit local police cooperation with federal immigration enforcement, for having Democratic leadership—then federal law enforcement authority is being weaponized, a First Amendment violation distinct from the Tenth Amendment commandeering claim.

Illinois Files Parallel Lawsuit

Illinois and the city of Chicago filed a parallel 103-page complaint challenging “Operation Midway Blitz,” a similar immigration enforcement surge that began in Chicago in September 2025 and has resulted in over 2,000 arrests.

The Illinois lawsuit invokes identical constitutional theories: Tenth Amendment anti-commandeering, First Amendment retaliation, and violations of federal rules about how agencies must operate. Both states allege federal agents used tear gas against peaceful crowds, conducted warrantless arrests, deployed biometric scanning to capture facial recognition data without consent, and trespassed on private property. Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul characterized the federal operation as an “organized bombardment” designed to coerce state and local governments into abandoning sanctuary policies.

Jurisdictional Authority Questions

Both lawsuits raise an issue beyond constitutional claims: Border Patrol agents are operating in interior cities for activities outside their traditional jurisdiction. Interior immigration enforcement—identifying, apprehending, and pursuing removal of people already in the country—has traditionally been ICE’s responsibility, a separate DHS agency with different training, procedures, and oversight. By deploying Border Patrol agents to Minneapolis and Chicago for interior enforcement activities, the Trump administration may have exceeded legal authority granted by Congress regardless of whether the operations violate the Constitution.

The Administration’s Defense

DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin stated that “President Donald Trump’s job is to protect the American people and enforce the law—no matter who your mayor, governor, or state attorney general is. That’s what the Trump administration is doing; we have the Constitution on our side on this, and we look forward to proving that in court.”

The administration’s argument rests on the President’s constitutional powers to enforce federal law, combined with Congress’s specific constitutional authority to control immigration. Immigration enforcement is fundamentally a federal responsibility, and the Constitution doesn’t authorize states to veto federal law enforcement activities simply because states prefer different policies. Immigration is indeed a federal matter. The President does possess executive authority to enforce federal law. The unsettled question is whether this federal authority nevertheless operates subject to structural limits imposed by the Tenth Amendment—particularly when enforcement operations impose substantial costs on states that explicitly oppose those operations.

Commandeering Through Operational Methods

Washington isn’t ordering Minneapolis police to enforce immigration law. Federal agents are doing that themselves. The theory is that commandeering can happen through operational methods, not explicit commands. If federal agents operate recklessly or create chaos, and state and local government must respond to maintain public order, has Washington effectively commandeered state resources even without issuing a direct order?

If federal agents conduct enforcement operations at schools, triggering lockdowns that school administrators must manage, those administrators are being forced to respond to federal actions. If agents operate in ways that generate 911 calls residents make because they can’t tell legitimate law enforcement from criminals, local police must respond. If agents abandon vehicles on public streets, someone has to move them. If operations trigger community protests, local police must manage crowd control. None of these responses are optional. Local government cannot ignore schools in lockdown, 911 calls from frightened residents, abandoned vehicles blocking traffic, or crowds forming in response to federal operations. Washington has created conditions that require local response—and that forced response costs money and diverts resources from local priorities.

Relevant Supreme Court Precedent

The Supreme Court has never directly addressed whether the anti-commandeering doctrine limits the federal government’s ability to conduct aggressive law enforcement operations in states opposed to those operations. The Court’s precedents clearly establish that Washington cannot require state officers to conduct immigration enforcement or participate in federal immigration programs. A federal judge dismissed the Trump administration’s lawsuit challenging Illinois sanctuary policies, finding those policies were protected under the Tenth Amendment as legitimate exercises of state authority to decline participation in federal immigration enforcement.

The distinction between recognizing state authority to decline participation and protecting states from the costs states must pay for federal operations conducted without their consent remains unclear.

Emergency Relief and Timeline

Both states asked courts for emergency orders to stop or pause federal operations while the constitutional litigation proceeds. Judges must find the states are likely to win their case and that waiting for a full court decision would cause harm that cannot be fixed by money or later court orders.

If courts grant those orders, federal immigration enforcement operations in both states could be substantially scaled back or halted entirely while litigation proceeds. But obtaining such orders is legally challenging because the anti-commandeering doctrine’s application to aggressive federal law enforcement operations remains unsettled. The administration will argue that core federal authority is at stake and courts should be reluctant to stop or pause federal law enforcement activities.

If courts deny the orders, federal operations will continue while litigation proceeds on the merits. The timeline likely extends over weeks or months.

Implications for Other States

Other Democratic-led states with sanctuary policies are watching closely. A ruling broadly protecting state authority over immigration enforcement within state borders could embolden other states to resist federal operations through litigation and legislative measures. A ruling narrowly upholding federal authority could support the Trump administration’s enforcement approach and suggest states lack constitutional grounds to resist federal operations.

The outcome will determine whether sanctuary city policies are political statements or actually protect states’ legal authority to limit their involvement in federal immigration enforcement.

The Core Constitutional Question

Can Washington conduct operations in a state that require that state to spend millions of dollars responding to consequences the state didn’t choose and explicitly opposes?

Minnesota argues no. The Tenth Amendment’s reservation of powers to the states means states control their own governmental apparatus, their own budgets, their own priorities. When Washington operates in ways that require states to divert resources from state priorities to manage federal consequences, that’s commandeering even without an explicit order.

The Trump administration argues yes. Federal immigration enforcement authority supersedes state objections. Washington may deploy immigration enforcement agents wherever federal officials determine enforcement is appropriate, regardless of local opposition. States can decline to cooperate, but they cannot exclude federal agents or avoid the consequences of federal operations conducted within legitimate federal authority.

Both positions have constitutional grounding. The resolution will shape federal-state relations on immigration policy for years. It will determine whether states possess meaningful constitutional authority to exclude federal immigration enforcement from their territories, or whether sanctuary city policies are political statements without legal teeth. It will establish whether the anti-commandeering doctrine protects states only from explicit federal commands or also from federal operations designed to impose costs that require state compliance.

The question now is whether the Tenth Amendment’s reservation of powers to the states means states can be forced to pay for federal operations they didn’t request, or whether the constitutional balance of power between federal and state governments requires compensation, cooperation, or at minimum, restraint. Federal courts will decide, but the answer matters to every city and state trying to figure out where federal power ends and state sovereignty begins.

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