Trump budget to cut funds to sanctuary cities.
Trump wants to end $210M in reimbursements
WASHINGTON — Buried in President Donald Trump’s budget proposal released Thursday was an opening salvo against socalled sanctuary cities, local jurisdictions he promised to punish for refusing to cooperate with deportation officers.
Trump wants to slash $210 million in federal reimbursements to state and local jails that hold immigrants convicted of crimes while in the country illegally.
The Trump administration called the program “poorly targeted,” adding that two-thirds of the money goes to only a handful of states, including California and Illinois, “for the cost of incarcerating certain illegal criminal aliens.”
The money, awarded by the Department of Justice, can make up a sizable portion of budgets for state and local police and sheriff’s departments.
Trump, who promised weeks before he was elected to “cancel all federal funding to sanctuary cities,” appears to be using it as a cudgel to force those local governments to comply with his administration’s efforts to deport people in the U.S. illegally.
“They are not working with the feds to try to address the immigration problem, so why should they be reimbursed for the costs of unsuccessful federal immigration enforcement?” said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, which favors restrictive immigration policies.
The proposal is part of Trump’s effort to fulfill his campaign pledge to toughen border security.
The sanctuary cities designation has existed for decades and is applied differently by each place that claims it, but generally it means that local political and law enforcement leaders have rejected taking part in immigration enforcement, saying it makes immigrants less likely to report crimes or help police conduct investigations.
Trump often said during the campaign he would cut federal funds to cities, including Los Angeles and Chicago, that routinely refuse to hold people in local jails until immigration officials can take them into custody.
His budget proposes eliminating the money from the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program, the Justice Department program that distributes the reimbursements. The cut would nearly zero out its funding for those types of payments.
The California state government received $50.6 million in reimbursements under the program last year, according to the Department of Justice. The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department received $6 million. The Illinois Department of Corrections brought in $4.7 million, and Cook County, home to Chicago, received $1.3 million.
Trump would use the savings in part to boost immigration enforcement personnel in the Department of Justice.
His budget called for hiring 75 new immigration judges, bringing the total to 449, as well as adding 60 federal prosecutors to focus on border enforcement and 40 more deputy U.S. marshals to aid in the “the apprehension, transportation, and prosecution” of those in the country illegally.
Democrats and others condemned Trump’s proposal.
“This cut is utterly illogical and would force state and local law enforcement to divert funds from hiring and training officers,” Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said in a statement.
“Local law enforcement should not be punished for Congress’ failure to pass a comprehensive immigration reform bill,” Feinstein said.
Krikorian, who sent policy proposals to the Trump transition team, counters that “sanctuary cities are nullifying federal law, taking federal law into their own hands.” Nonetheless, Krikorian expects Congress will preserve the money for local jails.
“It might be useful to keep because then you can use it as a sweetener for some jurisdictions not to be sanctuary cities,” he said.
Denying funding to some states and cities and not others could open the Trump administration to lawsuits, warned Chris Rickerd, an expert on border security at the American Civil Liberties Union. Slashing the entire fund may be an easier way to get the same result, he said.
“This is a test for what he can touch in terms of grant funding,” Rickerd said.
Trump has called for local officials to be required to identify people who are in jail and could be deported when they are released.