JUSTICE DEPARTMENT/LEGAL/SANCTUARY CITIES: “President Donald Trump’s administration on Wednesday [1-24-18] escalated its battle with ‘sanctuary cities’ that protect illegal immigrants from deportation, demanding documents on whether local law enforcement agencies are illegally withholding information from U.S. immigration authorities.
The U.S. Justice Department said it was asking for the records from 23 jurisdictions, including America’s three largest cities – New York, Los Angeles and Chicago – as well as three states, California, Illinois and Oregon… The Republican president’s fight with the Democratic-governed sanctuary cities, an issue that appeals to his hard-line conservative supporters, began just days after he took office last year when he signed an executive order saying he would block funding to municipalities that failed to cooperate with federal immigration authorities. The order has since been blocked by a federal court.
The sanctuary cities issue is part of Trump’s broader crackdown on illegal immigrants living in the United States. As a candidate, he threatened to deport all roughly 11 million of them.
The administration has accused sanctuary cities of violating a federal law that requires states and local authorities to share information about people they arrest with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency.
Other jurisdictions on the list targeted by the Justice Department include: Denver; San Francisco; the Washington state county that includes Seattle; Louisville, Kentucky; California’s capital Sacramento; New York’s capital Albany, West Palm Beach, Florida; and others… Some cities have said compliance as described by the Justice department is not required under the law at issue and that they will honor requests from immigration authorities when accompanied by a criminal warrant.”
-Sarah N. Lynch, “Justice Department demands documents from ‘sanctuary cities’,” Reuters, Jan. 24, 2018 09:10am