Politics
BREAKING: DOJ Orders Criminal Investigations For State, Local Officials Obstructing Deportations
State and local officials standing in the way of mass deportations are starting to feel the heat from President Donald Trump’s newly empowered Department of Justice.
Now that the DOJ has morphed from a weapon used against Trump to one at his disposal, he is taking aim at Democratic politicians across the country who authorities say are shielding illegal immigrants through obstructive tactics that are preventing their arrests.
On Tuesday, U.S. Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove, the president’s longtime criminal defense lawyer, sent a memo to DOJ staff outlining the department’s intent to prosecute anyone standing in the way of deportations. In it, he writes that a “newly established Sanctuary Cities Enforcement Working Group” within the DOJ’s Civil Group will work to identify any local laws or statutes that clash with executive branch initiatives and to challenge those policies in court.
Bove, the top political appointee at the DOJ, has told subordinates that the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution requires state and local authorities to comply with the administration’s immigration policies. Anyone who refuses, he said, may be prosecuted under a law against “defrauding or committing offenses against the US, which carries a prison sentence of up to five years,” Bloomberg reported.
U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement (ICE) lack the necessary manpower to deport millions like President Trump has promised, making partnerships with local authorities critical, Bove adds.
“The Justice Department’s responsibility” includes “aggressive enforcement of laws enacted by Congress, as well as vigorous defense of the President’s actions on behalf of the United States against legal challenges,” Bove wrote. “The Department’s personnel must come together in the offices that taxpayers have funded to do this vitally important work.”
The memorandum is the first salvo in a war that has arrived after being on the horizon for years. Central to Trump’s successful campaign was his promise to conduct “the largest mass deportation in American history,” and one that 55% of Americans fully support, according to a recent New York Times poll.
The battlegrounds will be sanctuary cities and states which, although not formalized through a particular set of laws, all share in common policies that prevent local authorities from cooperating with federal immigration officials around the arrest and deportation of illegal immigrants.
President Trump has previously threatened to withhold federal aid from cities and states out of compliance with his immigration initiatives, but Bove’s memo indicates that the administration will be ratcheting up the pressure on his political foes.
Mayors in Denver, Chicago, Boston, and elsewhere have vowed to resist efforts by ICE to enter their cities and pursue illegal immigrants charged with violent crimes. Tom Homan, the president’s border czar, has promised to arrest and jail Democratic politicians if he believes they are aiding and abetting in shielding illegal immigrations from deportation, a federal crime.
On Tuesday, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security also announced a slate of new policies that immigration officials will pursue, including arresting illegal immigrants in schools, churches, and other “sensitive” spaces that were previously deemed off limits.
