Sessions outlines immigration plan
Attorney general visits US-Mexico border
NOGALES, Arizona, April 12, (Agencies): Attorney General Jeff Sessions toured the US-Mexico border Tuesday and unveiled what he described as a new get-tough approach to immigration prosecutions under President Donald Trump.
The nation’s top law enforcement official outlined a series of changes that he said mark the start of a new push to rid American cities and the border of what he described as “filth” brought on by drug cartels and criminal organizations.
The tour included visiting a port of entry, where Sessions exited an SUV in a white shirt and baseball cap before entering a restricted area.
Sessions has been steadily expanding the Justice Department’s role in the anti-immigration agenda of the Trump administration, but the border trip offered the most comprehensive look yet at his plans.
During his visit, he urged federal prosecutors to intensify their focus on immigration crimes such as illegal border crossing or smuggling others into the US.
Such prosecutions are already happening on a large scale. They made up more than half of all federal prosecutions in fiscal year 2016, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University. But prosecutions were slightly down from fiscal year 2015.
In a three-page memo, Sessions told US attorneys to prioritize immigration prosecutions by appointing a border security coordinator who can oversee investigations, keep statistics and provide legal advice and training to prosecutors. The coordinators would meet regularly with federal immigration authorities.
In addition, Sessions said federal prosecutors must consider bringing felony charges against those who have illegally entered the country more than once as well as those who marry to evade immigration laws. He also urged prosecutors to consider charging those illegally in the country with felony identity theft and document fraud.
“This is a new era. This is the Trump era,” he said. “The lawlessness, the abdication of the duty to enforce our immigration laws, and the catch and release practices of old are over.”
Sessions defended Trump’s proposed border wall, saying it will be another tool to fight illegal immigration amid efforts within the Justice Department and other branches of government to punish and deter border crossers.
He also returned to a common theme from the Trump campaign by saying drug cartels and criminal gangs are turning American cities into “war zones” by raping and killing innocent people.
“It is here, on this sliver of land, where we first take our stand against this filth,” he said.
Critics blasted the initiatives an- MONTPELIER, Vermont, April 12, (AP): The Vermont motor vehicle department gave federal officials information on immigrants living in the country illegally, documents show, giving life to longstanding fears that programs providing such immigrants with documentation could be used against them.
Copies of emails requested and recently obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union show that investigators with the state Department of Motor Vehicles coordinated with federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials last year to identify noncitizens.
Many of the emails show department investigators sent information to ICE on migrants they suspect gave false information on their applications for driver identification cards. The state’s card program was created in 2013 to provide immigrants living in the country illegally with a way to drive.
The ACLU asked for the records to ensure the motor vehicle department was complying with a settlement agreement reached last year in a discrimination case brought by a Jordanian man. The man had applied for a driver ID card, and state officials forwarded his information to federal immigration officials, who started deportation proceedings. He was briefly jailed and released after posting bail; he was ultimately not deported.
The department was ordered to pay $40,000 to the man and follow a Vermont policy that prohibits state officials from carrying out federal immigration policy.
“We wanted to see if the DMV was honoring that agreement,” said ACLU attorney Jay Diaz. “Unfortunately, these emails show that they were not.”
Vermont’s Seven Days newspaper first reported about the documents,
nounced by Sessions as fear-mongering and anti-immigrant rhetoric not rooted in facts.
“Once again, Attorney General Sessions is scaring the public by linking immigrants to criminals despite studies showing that immigrants commit crimes at lower rates than the native born,” said Gregory Z. Chen, director of government relations for the American Immigration Lawyers Association.
Sessions said that each US attorney would be required to designate a point person on border security prosecutions by April 18. The person in that position, known as a border security coordinator, would be directed to coordinate with the which span from November 2015 to November 2016. And a report published by the news outlet VTDigger. org in October 2016 showed the motor vehicle department and ICE had been coordinating, similarly to what the newly released documents show, as early as 2014.
It’s unclear exactly how many immigrants were the subjects of communication, but a motor vehicle official said at a legislative hearing Tuesday that one investigator in southern Vermont had nearly 300 cases last year. It is also unclear whether anyone has been deported because of the communication.
Such cooperation between state officials and federal deportation agents has long been a fear of immigrants in the country illegally who apply for identification cards in places that allow for them.
The development is especially surprising in Vermont, a politically liberal state where even the Republican governor, Phil Scott, has acted intensively on behalf of immigrants. Scott last month enthusiastically signed a law that some critics said came close to making Vermont a “sanctuary state,” limiting the work police can do on behalf of the federal government.
He called it a response to federal overreach on immigration by the administration of President Donald Trump, a member of his own party.
Twelve other states and Washington, DC, along with some municipalities, have some type of program allowing immigrants living in the country illegally to get some form of legal identification for such needs as driving or attending school.
In New York City, officials are considering destroying the information of people who apply for municipal ID cards out of fear their information will end up with federal immigration officials.
Department of Homeland Security, according to Sessions’ memo.
The directive did not go beyond existing laws, but Sessions said his order “mandates the prioritizations of such enforcement” by US attorneys.
The Trump administration has threatened to cut off US Justice Department grants to so-called sanctuary cities that fail to assist federal immigration authorities.
Police in such cities have argued that targeting illegal migrants is an improper use of law enforcement resources. Sessions has said a failure to deport aliens convicted of criminal offenses puts whole communities at risk.