Miami-Dade among nine ‘sanctuaries’ threatened with loss of grant money
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration intensified its threats to crack down on so-called sanctuary cities that refuse to comply with federal immigration authorities, warning nine jurisdictions Friday that they may lose law enforcement grant money unless they document cooperation.
It sent letters to state officials in California as well as Miami-Dade Count y; New York; Chicago; Philadelphia; New Orleans; Clark County, Nevada; Cook County, Illinois; and Milwaukee County, Wisconsin — all places the Justice Department’s inspector general has identified as limiting the information local law enforcement can provide to federal immigration authorities of those in their custody.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions has warned that the administration will punish communities that refuse to cooperate with efforts to find and deport immigrants in the country illegally. But some of the localities continued to resist federal pressure, despite risking the loss of funds that police agencies use to pay for
Contends that so-called “sanctuary cities” that refuse to automatically hold arrested unauthorized immigrants until they can be picked up by federal authorities are seeing a rise in crime and gang activity as a result of their policies.
Argue that involving local police in enforcement of federal immigration laws discourages unauthorized immigrants from reporting crimes. everything from body cameras to bulletproof vests.
“We’re not going to cave to these threats,” Milwaukee County Supervisor Marina Dimitrijevic said, promising a legal fight if money is pulled.
Playing off Sessions’ recent comments that sanctuary cities undermine the fight against g a ngs, t he Just i c e Depar tment said communities under financial threat are “crumbling under the weight of illegal immigration and violent crime.”
After a raid led to the arrests of 11 MS-13 gang members in California’s Bay Area “cit y officials seemed more concerned with reassuring illegal immigrants that the raid was unrelated to immigration than with warning other MS-13 members that they were next,” the department said in a statement.
The federal law in question says state and local governments may not prohibit police or sheriffs from sharing information about a person’s immigration status with federal authorities. Friday’s letters warn officials they must provide proof from an attorney that they are following the law.
The money could be withheld, or terminated, if local officials fail to show proof, wrote Alan R. Hanson, acting head of the Office of Justice Programs. The grant program is the leading source of federal justice funding to states and local communities.
Leaders in Chic ago and Cook County, which shared a grant of more than $2.3 million in 2016, dismissed the threat. So did the mayor’s office in New York City, which received $4.3 million. The Justice Department pointed to Chicago’s rise in homicides and said New York’s gang killings were the “predictable consequence of the city’s softon-crime stance.”
“This grandstanding shows how out of touch the Trump administration is with reality,” said Seith Stein, a spokesman for the New York City mayor’s office. “Contrary to their alternative facts, New York is the safest big city in the country, with crime at record lows in large part because we have policies in place to encourage cooperation between NYPD and immigrant communities.”
They were singled out in a May 2016 report by the Justice Department’s inspector general that found local policies or rules could interfere with providing information to immigration agents. Following the report, the Obama administration warned cities they could miss out on grant money if they did not comply with the law, but it never actually withheld funds.