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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 Department of Justice recently made a notable blunder by misspelling the name of a key official in a lawsuit challenging a Democratic governor’s executive order. This order was designed to halt warrantless ICE activities on state property in New Jersey.
On February 11, Governor Mikie Sherrill announced an executive order that would prevent ICE from using state property for immigration enforcement operations unless they had a judge-signed warrant.
In the executive order, Sherrill highlighted alarming trends in federal civil immigration enforcement tactics. These included the inappropriate arrest and detention of U.S. citizens, including minors, often during nighttime raids, the use of chemical agents by masked officers against peaceful protestors, and the tragic deaths caused by federal agents, all accompanied by incidents of racial profiling.
In a statement released alongside the order, Sherrill criticized the Trump administration for what she described as “lawless actions,” particularly citing the fatal ICE and CBP shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minnesota.
“ICE’s blatant disregard for constitutional rights and its violent impact on communities — including the detention of children, the arrest of citizens, and the killing of innocent civilians — compels me to protect the safety of New Jersey residents,” the governor asserted.
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.”