U.S. District Judge Frank Geraci has dismissed a court case filed by the U.S. Department of Justice against the city of Rochester over its sanctuary city policy.
In his judgment, filed Thursday in federal court, Geraci argued the complaint filed by the DOJ is now moot since the city adopted a new sanctuary policy over the summer. The original complaint was filed in April and sought to bar the city from following the policy, which forbids city employees, including police, from aiding in immigration enforcement.
Rochester first enacted a sanctuary city policy in 1986 and reaffirmed its status in 2017 and 2025. The most recent iteration includes added protections for LGBTQ individuals, as well as guidelines for disciplining employees who violate the policy, including possible termination. That policy was unanimously adopted by the Rochester City Council in August.
“The city has recently codified new sanctuary policies that none of the parties or amici have addressed,” Geraci wrote. “That intervening development renders the United States’s challenge to the 2017 directives moot.”
Geraci also wrote that it was unclear exactly what the DOJ was requesting from the court, noting that its filing requested issuing a “hold.” He described the motion, which also sought an advisory opinion from the federal court, as “unusual.”
“The Court presumes that the United States was not actually requesting a mere ‘holding,’ yet the absence of particularized requests for relief in its cross-motion left the court uncertain what relief the United States did, in fact, seek, assuming its claims had merit,” Geraci wrote.
The case has been dismissed without prejudice, meaning the DOJ is free to submit an amended complaint to challenge the current sanctuary policy. They have until Dec. 17 to do so.
