Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Administration getting tough with sanctuaries
Local governments that ‘undermine’ laws to lose funds
Local governments could lose grants if they do not cooperate with immigration authorities.
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration on Tuesday strengthened its crackdown on so-called sanctuary cities, announcing a policy that says local governments will lose some federal grants if they do not give advance notice when illegal immigrants are about to be released from custody and allow immigration agents access to local jails.
The new policy, announced by the Justice Department, will apply to cities that get grants from the Byrne Justice Assistance grant program, for which the administration has requested just over $380 million for the coming year.
The grants provide local jurisdictions with money to buy such items as bulletproof vests and body cameras. It also funds drug treatment, witness protection and prison re-entry programs. The requirements will apply to cities seeking grants starting in September.
A judge in April blocked President Donald Trump’s executive order aimed at withholding funding from sanctuary cities, saying the president could not set new conditions on spending approved by Congress. But the Justice Department said it still could condition some of its grants to force cities to cooperate with immigration authorities.
Although the move carries considerable symbolism because of the highprofile debate over sanctuaries, the money involved is roughly half a percent of federal grants to state and local governments, according to figures from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.
“So-called ‘sanctuary’ policies make all of us less safe because they intentionally undermine our laws and protect illegal aliens who have committed crimes,” Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in announcing the new policy. “These policies also encourage illegal immigration and even human trafficking by perpetuating the lie that, in certain cities, illegal aliens can live outside the law.”
“These long overdue requirements will help us take down MS-13 and other violent transnational gangs and make our country safer,” he added.
Sessions has been pressuring sanctuary cities for several months, but this is the first time that the Justice Department has set specific rules and applied them to an entire grant program.
Under the policy, cities will have to meet three conditions if they want the grants: allowing Homeland Security agents access to local and state jails, in order to question people without legal permission to be in the U.S.; giving 48-hour notice when such prisoners are about to be released; and complying with a law that prohibits any jurisdictions from stopping the exchange of information about an individual’s immigration status.
The policy, announced as Sessions comes under extraordinary criticism from President Trump, seems guaranteed to garner strong opposition from cities and the courts. In some states, courts have held that state and local authorities cannot detain people who are not charged with a crime simply because of a request from federal immigration agents.
Some cities have gone beyond refusal to cooperate with “detainers” to refuse all cooperation with immigration enforcement, on grounds that otherwise law-abiding people who are in the country illegally can be deported if they are snared on minor crimes.
Sessions, a fierce advocate for tougher immigration enforcement throughout his career as a U.S. senator from Alabama, has made the issue a priority during his tenure as attorney general. On Friday, he made a speech in Philadelphia, blaming the city’s sanctuary policies for contributing to violent crime.
Trump is also expected to highlight similar issues on a trip this week to New York’s Long Island, which is slated to highlight some recent high-profile crimes blamed on the Salvadoran-based MS-13 gang.
Jorge Baron, executive director of the Seattlebased Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, said he expected states or local jurisdictions to challenge the restrictions under the 10th Amendment to the Constitution, which reserves powers to the states that are not specifically delegated to the federal government.
“I have serious doubts about the legality of what they’re trying to do,” Baron said. “It’s the feds trying to compel local jurisdictions to do something on their behalf.”
But beyond that, he argued, it’s simply a bad idea to have local authorities enforcing immigration law: “Imagine your house is getting broken into and an undocumented person walks by and sees it. That undocumented person isn’t going to call 911 if they’ve heard the local police or the sheriff is involved in immigration enforcement.”