President Donald Trump arrives to speak during a roundtable on criminal cartels in the State Dining Room of the White House, Thursday, Oct. 23, 2025, in Washington, as Attorney General Pam Bondi and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem watch (AP Photo/Evan Vucci).
The DOJ failed to correctly spell the name of the prominent official it sued in a case to invalidate a recently elected Democratic governor”s executive order to stop warrantless ICE activities on New Jersey property.
On Feb. 11, Gov. Mikie Sherrill touted an executive order to bar ICE from “using state property to launch” immigration enforcement operations in the absence of a warrant signed by a judge.
In the order itself, Sherrill cited as support for the ban some “deeply troubling trends in militarized federal civil immigration enforcement in cities and states across the United States—including the arrests and detention of United States citizens, including children, at times in the dead of night; masked agents unleashing chemical irritants on bystanders and non-violent protestors; the killings of United States citizens by federal officers; and incidents involving racial profiling[.]”
In a statement accompanying the order, Sherrill took aim at President Donald Trump’s administration and its “lawless actions,” referencing the lethal ICE and CBP shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minnesota.
“Given ICE’s willingness to flout the Constitution and violently endanger communities — detaining children, arresting citizens, and even killing several innocent civilians — I will stand up for New Jerseyans right to be safe,” the governor stated.
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi’s DOJ responded on Monday with lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey, claiming that Sherrill made it state policy to “obstruct and endanger law enforcement.”
“States may not deliberately interfere with our efforts to remove illegal aliens and arrest criminals — New Jersey’s sanctuary policies will not stand,” Bondi said in a statement of her own.
Sherrill’s last name was noticeably misspelled multiple times in the filing, including in the case caption, where the former congresswoman’s name appears as “Sherill.”
The DOJ sues Gov. Mikie Sherrill but struggles with spelling (court documents).
While Sherrill may have been “sued in her official capacity,” she was not sued according to her official name. The complaint additionally identifies “Defendant Mikie Sherill” as the “Governor of New Jersey.”
According to the DOJ, Sherrill’s order contains the same problem of “discrimination” that another judge identified in a California federal lawsuit over the faces and names of ICE agents.
“On its face, the Executive Order prevents federal immigration agents from using state-owned property accessible to local and state law enforcement. The sole reason for the exclusionary treatment of federal immigration agents enforcing our Nation’s federal immigration laws is New Jersey’s disagreement with the substance of the laws written by Congress that have remained on the books and largely unchanged for half a century,” the lawsuit said. “The State of New Jersey has adopted this policy with the clear objective of obstructing President Trump from enforcing federal immigration law. The policy is designed to and in fact does interfere with and discriminate against the Executive’s enforcement of federal immigration law in violation of the Supremacy Clause.”
Because Sherrill “treats local and state law enforcement more favorably by providing unrestricted access to state-owned property,” she discriminated against the federal government’s immigration agents, the complaint added.
“Accordingly, the Executive Order is invalid under the Supremacy Clause and must be enjoined,” the filing said. “The United States brings this declaratory and injunctive action to prohibit the State of New Jersey from enforcing the Executive Order that aims to thwart enforcement of federal law it disagrees with.”
