WASHINGTON, DC – The Trump administration has ordered federal prosecutors across the country to investigate and potentially charge local officials who do not comply with his plans of mass deportation, according to a memo obtained by the Washington Post this past week.
Issued by acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove, the threat insisted federal law requires cooperation in immigration enforcement and prosecution for those who attempt to obstruct these efforts.
The debate over federal versus local immigration will further intensify as this move is expected to encounter stark opposition from cities and states with sanctuary policies, reported the Washington Post.
According to The Washington Post, General Bove ordered “U.S. attorneys’ offices across the country to investigate any official who defies those efforts and consider prosecuting them on charges that, if they’re convicted, could send them to prison.”
After the memo was sent out, “the agency’s new leadership announced a different but also significant change in the civil rights division, halting any litigation or related actions in cases left over from the Biden administration. The freeze seems to jeopardize police reform agreements the Justice Department negotiated in recent months with cities including Minneapolis, Louisville and Memphis,” wrote the Washington Post.
The Washington Post said New Jersey Attorney General Matthew J. Platkin did say that he will continue to work to make sure that criminals who are violent are handled by immigration enforcement, but also ensure that all other immigrants feel safe and comfortable to report crimes without fearing deportation.
Over the past few years, “local agencies and elected officials have faced criticism for alerting ICE about detained immigrants or holding those individuals longer than needed so that federal deportation agents can pick them up. Critics say local agencies should not help deport minor offenders or people whose criminal charges were dismissed. And they point out that immigration offenses are civil, not criminal,” the Post reported.
Trump administration officials have consistently emphasized their top priority of deporting criminals, but also “he could remove immigrants who haven’t committed crimes. ICE says there are nearly 650,000 immigrants with varying criminal histories whom the agency is monitoring but has not detained.
“Some have faced serious criminal charges, others very minor ones. Including those people, the agency is monitoring more than 7 million individuals who are not in ICE custody,” the Washington Post reported, adding the President has ensured that “sanctuary jurisdictions ‘do not receive access to federal funds.’”
The nonprofit organization, America First Legal, founded by Trump’s current deputy chief of staff for policy, Stephen Miller, has “created a website to track what it considers sanctuary jurisdictions and published contact information for elected officials it says are violating federal law,” the Washington Post reported.
NJ AG Platkin noted his state, as others, “works with ICE to facilitate the removal of serious criminals. He said a mass deportation campaign could lead to the removal of law-abiding business leaders, law enforcement personnel who do not have permanent legal status or people brought to the United States as children.”
Platkin added, “One of the greatest lies has been that anyone is providing ‘sanctuary’ to murderers and rapists. To get to the kind of numbers of removals that he’s talking about, you would have to remove people who have done nothing wrong in this nation,” the Washington Post writes.
Although no definition of a sanctuary jurisdiction exists, hundreds of communities in states like Illinois, Oregon, and California have made efforts to “limit cooperation with ICE,” according to the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, a San Francisco-based nonprofit that has tracked the issue for years.
“Some refuse to share records, let immigration agents into their jails or detain arrested immigrants after they have posted bail so that ICE can pick them up,” the Washington Post reports.
Last week, city officials in Chicago reaffirmed their opposition, said the Post, to cooperating with enforcement, as “it is legal for state and local officials to opt out of federal immigration enforcement, since requests to detain immigrants are not federal warrants signed by a judge.”
“Some law enforcement officers say working with ICE destabilizes their communities and makes immigrants afraid to report crimes. Police also worry that they could be breaking the law by jailing people for civil immigration offenses,” the Washington Post reports.
Trump has promised Americans, according to the Washington Post, to launch “the largest domestic deportation operation in American history,” and he has directed agencies across the federal government, including the Defense Department, to make immigration enforcement a priority. The president and his surrogates have repeatedly threatened to punish sanctuary jurisdictions.”
