The Trump administration has hauled Washtenaw County into federal court, accusing local leaders of tying the hands of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and creating what it calls an unlawful “sanctuary.” In a lawsuit filed yesterday, the Department of Justice urges a judge to stop county rules that it says block ICE from taking custody of people the agency deems removable, setting up a fast-moving legal showdown in the Ann Arbor area.
What the government filed
The case, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan as Civil Action No. 5:26-cv-11166, targets a who’s who of county leadership. The defendants are the County of Washtenaw, Sheriff Alyshia M. Dyer, Prosecuting Attorney Eli Savit, the Washtenaw County Sheriff’s Office, the Office of the Prosecuting Attorney and the Washtenaw County Board of Commissioners, according to Scribd. Federal lawyers want the court to declare three specific county policies invalid under federal law and to impose permanent injunctions that would bar officials from enforcing those measures at all.
The policies at issue
The complaint zeroes in on three actions that, taken together, the DOJ says add up to an improper sanctuary framework. First is Washtenaw County Sheriff’s Office General Order 1.14, which the suit says tells staff not to honor ICE detainers unless there is a judicial warrant attached. Second is a 2021 directive from the prosecuting attorney that instructs prosecutors to “seek to avoid immigration consequences wherever possible.” Third is a Jan. 21 county board resolution that blocks ICE from entering county property without a judicial warrant. Those policies are laid out in the government’s filing and in local reporting. According to ClickOnDetroit, the Justice Department argues the three moves function together to thwart federal immigration enforcement.
Detainers and the cases the government highlights
The DOJ says the stakes are not theoretical. The complaint asserts that in 2025 alone, county officials failed to respond to 40 ICE detainer requests, and it highlights several criminal cases as examples of what it casts as public safety risks. One is Miguel Angel Aparicio-Navas, convicted May 1, 2025, of sexual assault crimes and subject to a federal arrest warrant, whose scheduled April 12 release from county custody the filing flags as potentially affected. Another is Mario Araujo Rodriguez, whom the complaint describes as having received a 365-day sentence after criminal sexual conduct convictions, as detailed in Scribd. The government also recounts several encounters that it says became more dangerous because ICE could not arrange to take custody directly from the jail.
Local context and reaction
The lawsuit lands in the middle of a long-running local argument over how far county officials should go in helping federal immigration agents. Sheriff Alyshia Dyer has previously said that immigration enforcement is a federal job and that her office will not hold people on civil immigration detainers, a position reported by WDET. The Jan. 21 board resolution and the wider county debate followed months of organizing and public comment. Hoodline covered those moves earlier in the year, while Michigan Advance reported on a related Michigan Supreme Court hearing where prosecutors warned that aggressive courthouse arrests by ICE could scare off victims and witnesses.
What the DOJ is asking for
The Justice Department is not just looking for a symbolic win. It is asking the court for a declaratory judgment that the sheriff’s order, the prosecutor’s directive and the county board’s resolution all violate the Supremacy Clause and principles of intergovernmental immunity. The suit also seeks permanent injunctions that would bar enforcement of those measures, together with attorney fees and costs, according to reporting that summarizes the filing. If the judge signs off, county officials would be blocked from applying the three policies and could be pushed to rethink how they handle ICE requests going forward, as reported by ClickOnDetroit.
Where this fits nationally
Washtenaw County is hardly alone in trying to put limits on how and where ICE operates. Across the country, cities and counties have passed rules that restrict the agency’s access to jails, courthouses and other government property, or that narrow when local officers can share information. Those moves have generated a wave of lawsuits and political battles from Oakland to New York City. The Guardian has tracked similar “ICE free” pushes and the growing list of court fights that follow them.
Legal implications
Legally, the case turns on well-worn but still hotly contested questions about preemption and the Supremacy Clause, namely when federal immigration law leaves no room for local variation and when local rules improperly interfere with federal duties. Past Supreme Court rulings, especially Arizona v. United States, and subsequent legal analysis show that courts ask whether a local policy conflicts with or is shut out by federal immigration statutes and regulations. Observers will be watching to see how the Eastern District of Michigan applies that framework here. For more background on those doctrines, see the analysis at SCOTUSblog.
What happens next
The case now moves into the usual federal litigation grind. Washtenaw County will be able to formally respond, and the court will eventually decide whether to grant the injunctions that the DOJ is pressing for. Until then, the lawsuit crystallizes a broader tension that has been simmering nationwide, between local officials who say they are trying to protect community trust and a federal government determined to enforce immigration laws even where cooperation is politically and legally fraught.
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