Now in Scowl-vision for Todds everywhere! (created via CNN and Universal images)

In a spasm of suits, the United States Department of Justice challenged four states’ policies that blocked the feds’ use of confidential license plates. Last week, Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey announced the Registry of Motor Vehicles would not provide Immigration & Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection with civilian plates to conceal their civil immigration operations. On Wednesday, DOJ sued.

In a release, the DOJ claimed the policies not only violated the Constitution but threaten ICE and CBP officers’ safety. The federal government has leveled such accusations often since Donald Trump’s return. These claims usually splatter against the wall of longstanding Constitutional precedent, though this case differs somewhat. Healey, who led many legal challenges to Trump last time, stood her ground.

“In Massachusetts, we support law enforcement doing legitimate criminal investigative work, and agencies doing that work can request confidential plates. But that’s not what we are seeing from ICE and its unconstitutional tactics,” she said in a statement. We are not going to use state resources to help ICE operate in secret, and without accountability, while refusing to provide basic information about who they are arresting and why.”

Healey added that it makes communities less safe and undermines public trust.

A spokesperson for Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell, who is also named in the suit, confirmed her staff are reviewing the suit. Campbell’s office said it “will defend the RMV policy to the greatest extent possible.”

The DOJ’s blitzkrieg of suits includes actions filed against Maine, Oregon and Washington state. However, it is only the latest attempt to commandeer states and municipalities to detain and remove immigrants. However, the Constitution does not allow the feds to do that.

The Justice Department’s release quotes Acting US Attorney General Todd Blanche, who is vying for the job permanently. He styles these actions as protecting law enforcement.

“By denying undercover license plates to [Department of Homeland Security] components, including ICE, while issuing them to their own state agencies, these governors are pursuing discriminatory and obstructionist policies against federal law enforcement,” Blanche whined. “These actions undermine federal immigration enforcement, allow dangerous criminals to escape justice, and terrorize American communities.”

DOJ: Secret Police are Totes Cool!

Yet, many and perhaps most of those immigration officials have grabbed are not remotely dangerous.

Several high-profile seizures of noncitizens in Massachusetts have occurred under the current federal regime. Among these are the arrest of a high school student on his way to volleyball practice. Most infamously, however, was plainclothes federal agents ripping a Tufts student off the streets as captured on video.

According to a letter from Healey’s chief counsel Jesse Boodoo wrote, on May 12 the DOJ demanded that Massachusetts reverse a policy that only allowed law enforcement agencies obtain confidential registration for criminal law enforcement activities. As immigration enforcement is a civil process, ICE and CBP are not eligible. Boodoo, writing on May 22, said the RMV policy was “lawful, proper, and fully within the sovereign power and discretion of the Commonwealth.”

Over 14 pages, the feds allege that the policy frustrates federal purpose and discriminates against the federal government. It claims the Commonwealth changed its policy in 2026. It further states that RMV forms do not distinguish between criminal and civil law enforcement activities. After several paragraphs about how ICE and CBP must operate in secret, the complaint lays out two claims that alleges violations of the Supremacy Clause of the US Constitution.

The DOJs release notes that Blanche had ordered the DOJ’s Civil Division to go after state and localities that “facilitate violations of federal laws or impede lawful federal operations.” Yet, this characterization is often detached from reality and the law.

A federal judge on Thursday dismissed a DOJ lawsuit against Boston for its Trust ordinance. That law, versions of which cities like Springfield also have, generally bars city cooperation with immigration authorities absent a judicial warrant. Local police often support such laws to build trust with immigrant communities. It was only the latest in the DOJ’s string of faceplants while suing to overturn local and state laws that prohibit or avoid cooperation with ICE and CBP.

In a pair of cases in the 1990s, the Supreme Court affirmed that the federal government cannot force states or their municipalities to perform federal functions. In other words, the federal government cannot order or coerce states to assist with federal activities like immigration enforcement. Courts have repeatedly struck down the Trump regime’s attempts to withhold funding from municipalities that will not facilitate the transfer of immigrants to the feds absent a judicial warrant.

The suit against Boston sought to force city police to honor civil detainers for immigrants in police custody. However, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled in Lunn v. Commonwealth that state law does not allow peace officers to detain people pursuant to federal civil detainers or administrative warrants.

One novel DOJ tactic is alleging states’ policies discriminate against the federal government or try to regulate it. This was the approach the feds used to attack one New York state law. That legislation notifies individuals when Department of Motor Vehicle received a federal request for information. The DOJ argued this was tantamount to frustrating federal activities through discrimination and regulation. A court in Albany did not buy it and dismissed the case. (The feds appealed.)

Healey has loudly criticized the Trump admin’s often thuggish approach to immigration enforcement. (WMP&I)

The case against Massachusetts rests on a largely similar theory. The limitation of confidential plates to criminal law enforcement impermissibly regulates the federal government, the complaint claims. However, the RMV’s policy restricts confidential plates from any level of government undertaking civil law enforcement.

For example, both the US Internal Revenue Service and the Massachusetts Department of Revenue would be ineligible for confidential registration. Meanwhile, like local cops or the State Police, the alphabet soup of criminal law enforcement agencies from the ATF to the FBI remain eligible.

The feds’ suit came ahead of Healey’s announcement of guidance to churches, schools, childcare facilities and other places to protect immigrant communities. The legislature is considering bills that would restrict the feds from making arrests in sensitive places like courthouses. Healey and AG Campbell have also set up a portal to report misconduct on the part of ICE and CBP.

The attorneys on the complaint’s signature block are largely political appointees who operate in Washington. US Attorney for Massachusetts Leah Foley appears, too, but it does not appear any career staff in her Boston office are directly involved in the suit.