“Confirmed Judges, Confirmed Fears” is a blog series documenting the harmful impact of President Trump’s judges on Americans’ rights and liberties. It includes judges nominated in both his first and second terms.by Biden
Trump Third Circuit judge Stephanos Bibas wrote a 2-1 decision upholding a ruling striking down a New Jersey law that prohibits contracts to civilly detain immigrants within its borders. The July 2025 holding was in CoreCivic Inc v Governor of New Jersey.
What happened in this case?
In 2021, New Jersey passed a law that banned state, local or private entities from contracting with the federal Immigration Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) to civilly detain and imprison immigrants in New Jersey. CoreCivic is a private corporation that operates a detention center in New Jersey that had a contract with ICE to detain immigrants in New Jersey and wanted to renew that contract, It filed suit in federal court, claiming that the law improperly interfered with the federal government’s authority to enforce immigration laws and harmed it as a result.
The district court granted summary judgment to CoreCivic, holding that the law violates principles of intergovernmental immunity and preemption. New Jersey appealed to the Third Circuit. On appeal, the federal Justice Department sided with CoreCivic as a friend of the court.
How did Trump judge Bibas and the Third Circuit majority rule and why is the result harmful?
Trump Judge Bibas wrote a 2-1 opinion, joined by Obama nominee Cheryl Krause, that affirmed the decision below and rejected New Jersey’s view that the law was valid. Echoing the district court, the majority wrote that the effect of the statute was to interfere with the federal government’s ability to enforce immigration laws, violating the preemption doctrine under which the federal government is responsible for immigration law enforcement as well as the principle of intergovernmental immunity.
Clinton nominee Thomas Ambro, however, strongly dissented. He carefully explained why neither preemption nor intergovernmental immunity applied in this case, basically because the New Jersey law itself “applies only to private, local and state parties, not the United States,” and its effect on the federal government is only “indirect.” He pointed to past precedent, including a 2022 Seventh Circuit decision that unanimously rejected a similar challenge to a comparable Illinois law. And he pointedly noted that Congress could pass legislation explicitly authorizing the federal government to make immigration detention contracts with private entities. The majority’s decision is improper, he concluded, because it “would have judges, rather than legislators, make politically sensitive judgments about when a neutral state law…interferes too much with federal interests.”
Bibas’ decision clearly harms New Jersey and its efforts to prevent civil detention of immigrants within its borders, as well as other states that may seek similar legislation, particularly in the Third Circuit, which includes Pennsylvania and Delaware as well as New Jersey. It also illustrates the importance of our federal courts to health, welfare and justice and the significance of having fair-minded judges on the federal bench.