Fresh from Obamacare loss, White House takes aim at sanctuary cities
U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions warned cities like Sacramento and Miami on Monday that the Department of Justice will punish so-called sanctuary communities that fail to cooperate with federal immigration laws.
Just days after failing to repeal Obamacare, the Trump administration returned to the bread-and-butter issue of immigration and threatened to withhold millions in federal funding from communities that fail to work with federal immigration agents.
Sessions, making an appearance at the daily White House briefing for reporters, warned that cities and states that don’t comply with federal immigration laws risk losing their share of $4.1 billion in Justice Department grants. He said the Justice Department would require cities seeking the grants to certify that they are cooperating with immigration authorities as a condition for receiving the awards.
Millions are at stake for communities like Sacramento County, which received $315 million in Office of Justice Programs grants in 2016. Miami-Dade County receives nearly $6 million in Office of Justice Programs grants.
“I urge our nation’s states and cities to consider carefully the harm they are doing to their citizens by refusing to enforce our immigration laws, and to rethink these policies,” Sessions said. “Such policies make their cities and states less safe, and put them at risk of losing valuable federal dollars.”
Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez criticized the new Justice Department requirement as undermining local law enforcement by threatening to take away critical funds that help keep criminals off the streets.
“This administration not only is trying to bully law enforcement and make them ICE agents, but they’re trying to bully immigrant families,” Perez said, referring to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
President Donald Trump ran for election promising to get tough on illegal immigration. Once sworn into office, he quickly took aim at sanctuary cities when he signed an executive order threatening to cut federal grant funding to counties and cities that don’t fully cooperate with ICE.
Soon after the order, Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Gimenez was one of the first city leaders to order county jails to comply with federal immigration-detention requests. Other mayors, including Sacramento’s Darrell Steinberg, vowed to fight the Trump administration. Steinberg visited Washington earlier this month and challenged Trump officials on their plans to withhold federal funding from cities.
“You do not recoil from a bully,” Steinberg said during a meeting with McClatchy, the parent company of the Star-Telegram.
Many police forces object to enforcing immigration laws, arguing that it increases fear among immigrants, who then won’t report crimes or assist police in tracking suspects.
Last week, the Department of Homeland Security released the administration’s first report on law enforcement agencies that had failed to cooperate with detention requests from ICE. That report named Sacramento among those localities that had failed to honor requests to detain immigrants.
Battleground Texas
Before making the announcement, Sessions met with U.S. Rep. John Culberson, R-Houston, who chairs the House Appropriations subcommittee that has jurisdiction over the Justice Department.
At Culberson’s behest, the Justice Department updated guidelines last July under President Barack Obama that disqualify sanctuary cities from receiving federal law enforcement grants if they are found to violate a 1996 law intended to enforce cooperation with federal immigration officials. The congressman said he will work with the Trump administration “to ensure that jurisdictions who protect criminal illegal aliens do not receive federal law enforcement grant money.”
The federal threat comes as Gov. Greg Abbott is having his own crackdown against Texas cities and counties that refuse to fully cooperate with federal immigration authorities, most notably Austin and Travis County.
“I applaud today’s bold action by Attorney General Sessions that aims to end sanctuary city policies that endanger American lives,” Abbott said in a statement. “After years of the previous administration turning a blind eye to this issue, the federal government is sending a clear and necessary message that the laws of this land are going to be enforced. Texas joins the Trump administration in its commitment to end sanctuary cities.”
Staff writer John Gravois contributed to this report, which includes material from the San Antonio Express-News.
This story was originally published March 27, 2017 at 6:31 PM with the headline "Fresh from Obamacare loss, White House takes aim at sanctuary cities."