Sessions criticizes Chicago and other ‘sanctuary’ cities
AG blames surge in crime on immigrant policies
WASHINGTON — Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Wednesday ripped Chicago for its defiant “sanctuary city” stance against turning over local prisoners for deportation, once again blaming the city’s surge in crime on policies designed to protect immigrants.
Speaking in Miami, where county authorities hold prisoners for federal immigration agents, Sessions said sanctuary policies are an example of “lawlessness” and again vowed to cut off federal funding to communities that use them.
Although the link between illegal immigration and rising crime is weak — studies show immigrants tend to commit crimes at lower rates than other people — Sessions suggested Miami’s policies contributed to a dramatic drop in murders.
“The same Independence Day weekend when Chicago suffered more than 100 shootings and 15 homicides, Miami-Dade also had a historic number of shooting deaths — zero,” he said.
He said the Trump administration would not continue giving money to cities “that actively undermine the safety and efficacy of federal law enforcement and actively frustrate efforts to reduce crime in their cities.”
“So if voters in Chicago are concerned about losing federal grant money: Call your mayor,” he said.
The dangers of immigrant crime are a major concern for President Donald Trump’s base of voters, and the issue was a favorite theme for his campaign. Sessions, a hard-line advocate for reducing immigration while serving in the U.S. Senate, has made the cause a top priority for the Justice Department.
Although immigration enforcement is mostly the responsibility of the Department of Homeland Security, Sessions has pushed to hire more immigration judges and has been determined to use financial grants as leverage, threatening to withhold millions of dollars from cities that keep their sanctuary policies.
Last week, Chicago, which received $2.2 million from a Justice grant program last year, filed a lawsuit aimed at blocking the department from linking the grants to immigration cooperation, a tactic the city calls “blackmail.”
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel said Sessions “could not have picked a worse time” for his speech, a week when Trump has been under siege for his shifting statements about violence during a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va.
“Chicago will continue to stand up proudly as a welcoming city, and we will not cave to the Trump administration’s pressure because they are wrong morally, wrong factually and wrong legally,” Emanuel said in a statement.
Other cities and states also have gone to court to block the administration’s attempted crackdown.