There are 35,000 Department of Homeland Security employees who have not received a paycheck in two months. Coast Guard civilians. FEMA emergency responders. CISA cybersecurity professionals. The people who protect ports, prepare for disasters, and defend federal networks from cyberattack. They are working — most of them classified as essential — and they are not being paid. The DHS shutdown is the longest department-specific shutdown in American history. Congress left town. Republicans blamed Democrats. Democrats demanded ICE reforms after agents fatally shot citizens in Minneapolis. Nobody made a deal.
And in the middle of this, yesterday, the Department of Justice filed a federal lawsuit against the state of Connecticut and the city of New Haven.
What Connecticut Actually Did
Connecticut has a law called the Trust Act. It regulates when and how state and local law enforcement can cooperate with federal immigration agents. The law was designed to prevent ICE from using routine police interactions — traffic stops, domestic calls, court appearances — as backdoors to immigration enforcement. The idea: if undocumented immigrants are afraid to call the police, crimes go unreported, witnesses disappear, and communities become less safe.
Last year, Connecticut’s legislature already modified the Trust Act to expand cooperation with ICE. The updated law allows state and local officials to comply with federal immigration detainers for individuals convicted of sexual assault, strangulation, child exploitation, burglary with a firearm, possessing child sexual abuse material, and violating protective orders. These are serious violent crimes. Connecticut cooperated. It just didn’t hand over everyone ICE wanted.
The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut, argues that the Trust Act violates the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution. The DOJ claims Connecticut has honored fewer than 20% of federal immigration detainers since 2020. The complaint highlights the case of Sanjay Sivan Walsh, convicted of two counts of sexual assault in 2023, who was released on probation rather than handed to ICE. Federal agents arrested Walsh in August 2025.
The Timing Is the Story
The DOJ filed this lawsuit on April 14, 2026. Here is what else was happening on April 14, 2026:
FEMA’s disaster relief fund is running dangerously low. The Iran ceasefire is collapsing. A naval blockade just started. Congress returned from a two-week recess having done exactly nothing about any of it. ICE agents are filling in for TSA at airports because TSA doesn’t have funding. And the DOJ — the same DOJ that can’t ensure its own department’s workers get paid — found the bandwidth to sue a state for not deporting enough people fast enough.
What This Is Really About
Attorney General William Tong’s response: Connecticut is a “sovereign state” with the right to determine how its law enforcement resources are used. The Trust Act was “intended to prioritize public safety” — meaning keeping communities willing to cooperate with police rather than hiding from them.
The DOJ’s framing is revealing. The lawsuit calls the Trust Act “deliberate, disruptive action that jeopardizes the public safety of all Americans.” This is a state that already expanded cooperation on violent crimes. The DOJ isn’t suing because Connecticut refuses to cooperate. It’s suing because Connecticut won’t cooperate on everything. The demand isn’t cooperation. It’s total compliance.
ERO Boston acting Field Office Director Patricia Hyde cited the Walsh case. One case. The government built a federal lawsuit around one man released on probation who was subsequently arrested by federal agents anyway. They got him. The system, imperfect as it was, still caught him. The lawsuit isn’t about public safety. It’s about the principle that states must do what the federal government tells them, even when the federal government can’t fund its own operations.
Bottom Line
The Department of Justice cannot keep the Department of Homeland Security open. It cannot pay 35,000 federal workers. FEMA is running out of disaster money. The Iran war is in its seventh week. And the priority — the thing that warranted a new federal lawsuit filed in a U.S. District Court — was punishing Connecticut for not handing over enough immigrants. That’s not law enforcement. That’s a political vendetta dressed in legal clothing, filed while the building is literally on fire.
Sources
- CT Mirror: Full reporting on the lawsuit filing, Trust Act provisions, Walsh case, AG Tong response, detainer compliance rate, modified cooperation framework.
- Department of Justice: Official announcement of the lawsuit against Connecticut and New Haven, April 14, 2026.
- Government Executive: DHS shutdown details — 35,000 workers affected, 92% continuing to work, ICE/CBP funded separately, FEMA and CISA unfunded.
- White House: Trump memorandum attempting to redirect funds to pay DHS workers, framing it as “Democrat-Caused Shutdown.”