Jeff Sessions Comes Out Swinging Against Sanctuary Cities
Attorney General Jeff Sessions, President Trump’s least favorite cabinet member, is not letting the fury of his boss prevent him from accomplishing his ultimate goal — targeting the nation’s immigrants. Sessions doubled down on his promise to defund sanctuary cities that don’t comply with the Department of Justice’s demands in an on announcement on Tuesday.
Sanctuary cities receiving federal funding from the Justice Department will now be required to give Immigration and Customs Enforcement access to their jails. In order to to continue receiving funding, sanctuary cities will also be required to give ICE a 48 hour notice when they release an undocumented immigrant sought by the department.
Additionally, sanctuary cities must allow their local law enforcement agencies to share its immigration information with ICE when it pertains to the status individuals local authorities arrest. Cities like Oakland, CA, whose City Council has already voted to end its police force’s information sharing agreement with ICE, will ostensibly be forced to comply or lose funding.
The grant program, according to The Associated Press, is one of the Justice Department’s most popular. It provides police departments with grants to purchase “everything from bulletproof vests to body cameras.”
In the announcement, Sessions decried sanctuary cities as essentially cesspools of crime. “So-called ‘sanctuary’ policies make all of us less safe because they intentionally undermine our laws and protect illegal aliens who have committed crimes,” Sessions said. “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.”
Something tells me that Sessions’s commitment to destroying sanctuary cities won’t impress Trump, nor make him any less susceptible to an abrupt dismissal.