Federal crackdown on sanctuary cities begins
Justice Dept.: They may lose grant cash for not helping ICE
Justice Department asks nine jurisdictions, including Miami, for proof they obey immigration law.
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration fired an opening salvo in its promised crackdown on socalled sanctuary cities Friday, asking nine jurisdictions for proof that they are cooperating with immigration enforcement, and warning they are at risk of losing federal grants.
The Justice Department sent the letters to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, as well as officials in Chicago, Cook County, Ill., Las Vegas, Miami, Milwaukee, New Orleans, New York and Philadelphia.
More than 150 communities have laws or policies that restrict the ability of police and jails to hand over people who are in the country illegally to federal immigration officers, but the nine were chosen because they were named in a Justice Department review last year.
The emerging dispute with the Trump administration already is in the courts, and the letters may bolster the administration’s case.
President Donald Trump repeatedly vowed to cut all federal funds to sanctuary cities during last year’s campaign, but it’s highly doubtful Congress would permit that. Thus far the administration has only threatened to cut off grants administered by the Justice Department. The actual amount at risk is relatively small — $4.1 billion in federal grants to governments and law enforcement agencies across the country.
The California Board of State and Community Corrections, for example, received $20 million last year from the Justice Department program identified in the letter.
California officials reacted with defiance Friday to the implied threat to cut the funds.
“It has become abundantly clear” that Attorney General Jeff Sessions and the Trump administration “are basing their law enforcement policies on principles of white supremacy — not American values,” Senate leader Kevin de Leon said in a statement.
The Justice Department warned that the grants could be jeopardized unless authorities can verify in writing that the state, counties and cities are not restricting sharing of information with federal immigration authorities on the citizenship status of people in prison and jail cells.
Trump and Sessions long have contended that sanctuary cities are defying federal law and are promoting crime by sheltering people whohave violated immigration statutes, including gang members and other violent criminals.
Supporters of the sanctuary policies argue that migrants here illegally would go underground and refuse to report crimes or cooperate with police if they feared doing so could lead to deportation.
In a statement, the Justice Department said many cities are “crumbling under the weight of illegal immigration and violent crime,” citing Chicago’s murder rate and gang killings in NewYork City.
The letters follow one of Trump’s executive orders, and a speech by Sessions at the White House in which he said that “countless Americans would be alive today— and countless loved ones would not be grieving today — if the policies of these sanctuary jurisdictions were ended.”
The nine jurisdictions were chosen because they were the focus of a study last year by the Justice Department’s inspector general.
They were among 155 cities, counties and jails that the Obama administration said were not fully cooperating with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Under President Barack Obama, immigration officials tried a diplomatic approach to solve the dispute, sending Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson to statehouses and city halls across the country to try to broker deals for some level of cooperation.
The Trump team is taking a much blunter approach.
The letters, signed by Alan Hanson, an acting assistant attorney general in charge of the Office of Justice Programs, set a June 30 deadline for compliance, including “an official legal opinion from counsel. Failure, he wrote, “could result in the withholding of grant funds, suspension or termination of the grants … or other action, as appropriate.”
The initial letters may signal a more widespread crackdown on defiant, immigrant-cities like Los Angeles or Boston. Pushback already has begun: Seattle has filed a lawsuit asking a federal court to declare that it can refuse to help Trump’s ramped-up deportation campaign.
Other communities have signaled support for the crackdown.
In Florida’s Miami-Dade County, police and jails cooperate with ICE and only are pressing for reimbursement of costs to keep migrants here illegally in jail, said Mike Hernandez, a county spokesman.