Sanctuary City Politics and Separation of Powers Conflict in Montana

Despite the small size of Montana’s unauthorized immigrant population, Montanans are feeling the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration, which has largely resulted in the deportation of people who have not been convicted of violent crimes. In one highly publicized case, the government early this year brought a felony illegal reentry charge against Roberto Orozco-Ramirez, a mechanic, father of four, and longtime resident of Froid, Montana (population 195). The conservative, rural community rallied around the man and his family, drawing 300 people to a fundraiser while he remained detained. The felony charges were dropped in April, though Orozco-Ramirez remained detained for another month until a federal judge ordered him released pending civil immigration proceedings.

Some Montanans seek to use local politics, including so-called sanctuary laws, as a mode of resistance in response to these aggressive deportation policies. The resulting conflict is not only about immigration, but also about local control, state executive power, and judicial review. It is exposing the tension between Montana’s small-government tradition and the increasingly top-down politics of immigration enforcement. Two local jurisdictions reflect different methods of testing the bounds of Montana’s anti-sanctuary law, leading to an unresolved and remarkable conflict between local government and the independently elected state attorney general.

During both President Donald Trump’s terms, state and local governments across the country have passed immigration sanctuary policies. These policies do not and cannot block federal immigration enforcement. Instead, they prevent cooperation and information-sharing with federal immigration authorities in some circumstances. As a matter of federal law, these policies are generally allowed. Although a federal statute bars laws that prohibit sharing information about immigration status, its constitutionality has been challenged. Constitutional principles of federalism prohibit the federal government from using its power to force state and local legislatures and executive branch officials to “enact or administer a federal regulatory program.”

This does not mean that sanctuary policies are allowed under state law, however. The federal Constitution does not govern the relationship between local and state governments. There are two models for local government authority: Home rule — under which local governments have some amount of inherent political power — and Dillon’s Rule — under which local governments may exercise political power only to the degree authorized by the state legislature. Under either of these models, it is generally accepted that the state may preempt local policies, although there have been movements to give local governments inherent authority that cannot be taken away by state government.

In Montana, as in several other states, local immigration sanctuary policies are prohibited by state statutory law. Once a reliably purple state known for ticket-splitting, Montana — like much of rural America — has reddened in recent years. Early in the Biden presidency, and when no city had a sanctuary policy on the books, the Montana legislature passed House Bill 200, which bars local jurisdictions from passing sanctuary policies. (A similar law passed in 2019 but was vetoed, with the former governor citing Montana’s “proud history of local control.”) The law prevents state agencies and local jurisdictions from implementing policies that restrict sharing immigration information and complying with federal requests to use local resources to hold individuals (usually in local jails), known as detainer requests. The law has unusual enforcement mechanisms: Jurisdictions face $10,000 fines for every five days of noncompliance, may lose existing and future state grants, and may lose out on infrastructure projects. The penalties do not accrue if the jurisdiction changes its policy within 14 days of a lawsuit filed by the state attorney general.

Municipalities in Montana are now testing the bounds of the state’s anti-sanctuary law. Two jurisdictions — the city of Helena and Gallatin County — highlight the varied ways localities are pushing back, leading to a still-unresolved and remarkable conflict between local government and the independently elected state attorney general.

In January, the City Commission of Helena, Montana’s capital, passed a resolution providing in part that city employees would not share sensitive information, including immigration status, with outside agencies unless “required by law” for the functioning of the city or “upon receipt of a valid court order.” Attorney General Austin Knudsen and Gov. Greg Gianforte held a joint press conference in response, announcing an investigation into the city for noncompliance with House Bill 200. After Knudsen sent a cease-and-desist letter describing the Helena policy as containing “blatant violations” of law, the commission held a highly attended and heated special meeting, at the end of which it rescinded the prior resolution, citing the risks and costs associated with potential noncompliance. When the city attempted to rewrite the resolution and asked Knudsen for feedback, Knudsen refused, accusing the city of “spend[ing] its time and money keeping violent criminals in our community [rather] than ensuring residents have clean drinking water, efficient government services, and safe streets.” No new resolution has been passed, and it is unclear whether the city will make another attempt.

A different — and more complicated — conflict relating to House Bill 200 is unfolding in Gallatin County, home to the fast-growing Bozeman. In October 2025, the executive assistant to the county attorney sent an email to local law enforcement stating that ICE is not entitled to receive confidential criminal justice information under Montana law absent a court order. Montana’s constitutional right to privacy provides the foundation for the statute governing confidential criminal justice information, which can be provided only “to criminal justice agencies, to those authorized by law to receive it, and to those authorized to receive it by a district court upon a written finding that the demands of individual privacy do not clearly exceed the merits of public disclosure.” County Attorney Audrey Cromwell later clarified that the email did not establish a unilateral policy with regard to ICE — which largely enforces civil immigration laws — but instead responded to a specific request from ICE for information relating to a civil immigration matter.

About six months after the email was sent, and in the midst of the conflict with Helena, Knudsen sent a cease-and-desist letter to Cromwell with the email attached. The letter disagrees with Cromwell’s interpretation of state law and its characterization of ICE and, in a bit of often-performed Montana political theater, states that “Montana is not California.” Cromwell, unlike Helena officials, did not make any changes in response to the attorney general’s letter. Instead, she rejected the claim that Gallatin County had any policy relating to sharing information with federal immigration officials and formally requested a legal opinion from Knudsen on the permissibility of information-sharing by local jurisdictions.

Knudsen refused to provide a legal opinion, even though Montana law obligates the attorney general “to give an opinion in writing . . . to any county attorney . . . when required upon any question of law relating to their respective offices.” He took Cromwell’s letter as confirmation that Gallatin County does not share information with ICE and ordered her to change the policy immediately. Most remarkably, he did not threaten a lawsuit, as anticipated by House Bill 200, but instead stated that he would exercise supervisory control over the County Attorney’s Office if she did not comply within four days. When Cromwell responded, she submitted an affidavit averring that her office has no policy governing information-sharing with ICE and explained that she had told county employees to direct questions about information to Knudsen’s office.

This was not enough. Knudsen invoked supervisory control over the Gallatin County Attorney’s Office on April 30, requiring her to give notice that her office would share information with ICE, including on all civil immigration matters. He also ordered her to produce all records relating to information-sharing with ICE and — more surprisingly — to a trip she took in February to Minneapolis, during which she met with Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison in the wake of Alex Pretti’s death at the hands of federal immigration agents. Montana law makes the attorney general uncommonly powerful, granting him “supervisory powers over county attorneys,” including “the power to order and direct county attorneys in all matters pertaining to the duties of their office.” The extent of this power has not been tested: Knudsen previously forceddismissal of two actions arising from noncompliance with early Covid-19 restrictions, and former Attorney General Tim Fox exercised supervisory control over Missoula County, at the county’s request, when the U.S. Department of Justice launched an investigation into the county’s response to sexual assault. But never has an attorney general attempted a hostile takeover of a county attorney’s office.

Cromwell filed a lawsuit on May 1 requesting the Montana Supreme Court to exercise original jurisdiction over the dispute and resolve the statutory interpretation and constitutional privacy issues. Knudsen, again purporting to exercise his power of supervisory control, ordered Cromwell to fire her attorney and drop the lawsuit, and told the court that his invocation of supervisory control deprives Cromwell of the authority to bring her claim. In response to a court order, Knudsen later filed a formal response to Cromwell’s lawsuit. To some degree, the response is standard: The attorney general asks the court to adopt his interpretation of Montana law or to send the matter down to a lower court for initial resolution.

But one aspect of the response is extraordinary. Knudsen contends that the court does not have the power to resolve Cromwell’s dispute because it presents a “political question” — a question exclusively assigned by the Montana Constitution to another branch of government. There are reasons to be skeptical of the degree to which such doctrines should limit state courts’ power of judicial review. But under any view of the doctrine, Knudsen’s response demonstrates a particularly extreme position. He argues that because he invoked supervisory control and ordered Cromwell to dismiss her petition, the court has no power to decide the parties’ dispute about the meaning of the law. But if he had brought an enforcement action under House Bill 200 or if he had issued a legal opinion, there would be no question of the courts’ power of judicial review. If such a conception of the political question doctrine were to take hold, the Montana attorney general would hold unilateral — and unreviewable — power to interpret some laws simply by virtue of his office.

Cromwell’s petition will be ripe for decision in mid-June, though it is hard to predict when and how the court will rule on it. The still-unresolved questions raised in the case reflect that the current political moment is creating new separation-of-powers conflicts in the states, as well as at the federal level. And at the heart of the debate is whether Montana’s commitment to small government and libertarian values still holds in an era of top-down politics.

Constance Van Kley is an assistant professor at the Blewett School of Law at the University of Montana. Her views are her own.

Suggested Citation: Constance Van Kley, Sanctuary City Politics and Separation of Powers Conflict in Montana, Sᴛᴀᴛᴇ Cᴏᴜʀᴛ Rᴇᴘᴏʀᴛ (June 11, 2026), https://statecourtreport.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/sanctuary-city-politics-and-separation-powers-conflict-montana