Trump wants to “unleash” local police but cautions against standing in the way of ICE

Trump’s Immigration Crackdown Rejoinds State and Local Officials Accountable, But Doesn’t Have a Role For The Attorney General

“The threat to withhold funding causes them irreparable injury in the form of budgetary uncertainty, deprivation of constitutional rights, and undermining trust between the Cities and Counties and the communities they serve,” Orrick wrote.

“Here we are again,” wrote U.S. District Judge William Orrick in San Francisco, who found that the Trump administration’s actions were likely unconstitutional and granted a preliminary injunction.

The Trump administration has also tried to withhold funding from sanctuary cities and states. During President Trump’s first term, the Justice Department tried to withhold funding from several jurisdictions — but they fought back, and were often able to defeat those efforts in court.

“We stand together in solidarity with our immigrant families,” wrote Keith Wilson, the mayor of Portland, OR, in a letter to the city council earlier this year, promising the city would try to “keep undocumented families safe by slowing or stopping cooperation with overreaching federal immigration enforcement.”

The executive order will direct the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security to identify jurisdictions where local enforcement has declined to cooperate with the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, according to White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt.

The White House said on Monday that it was simple: obey the law, respect the law, and don’t obstruction law enforcement officials when they are trying to remove public safety threats.

The order also states that the attorney general must review all binding legal agreements with police departments and make sure they don’t impede the performance of law enforcement functions.

The first portion of the executive order is positive according to Peter Moskos, a former police officer and now professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice.

Moskos said that the federal government could make a difference in making communities safer.

But he doesn’t like other portions of the order. The section called “Hammering State and Local Officials Accountable” gives the attorney general authority to pursue legal remedies against state and local officials for discrimination, as well as obstruction of law enforcement officers.

“I’m all the cops,” Dugan told the media after the FBI’s raid of a Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, immigration judge

On Friday, the FBI arrested Wisconsin judge Hannah Dugan for allegedly trying to help a man avoid being arrested by ICE in her courtroom at the Milwaukee County Courthouse.

“When you cross that line to impedement (sic) or knowingly harboring, concealing an illegal alien from ICE, you will be prosecuted,” White House Border Czar Tom Homan said during the same press briefing. “Judge or not.”

“I’ve never suggested that anybody interfere with what the federal government has to do,” says Sheriff Paul Heroux, of Bristol County, Mass. He doesn’t think the White House executive orders will change the fact that state law doesn’t allow him to accommodate ICE requests to hold people in jail beyond their release dates.

The executive order promises legal help to individual officers who incur expenses and liability for actions taken on duty. The order says the system, to be created by the attorney general, should include “private-sector pro bono assistance,” possibly a reference to the pro-bono work pledged by law firms that have recently come under pressure from the administration.

Consent decrees were once a favorite method of the Obama-era Justice Department to impose reforms on troubled police departments, but the tactic fell into disuse during the first Trump administration, and was slow to come back under Biden, as even some reformers acknowledged that consent decrees were often too burdensome on local police.

The DOJ will not initiate new investigations and consent decree if there is an exodus of lawyers in the civil rights division.

“In its totality, it is incredibly concerning,” says Juan Cuba, executive director of the group Sheriff Accountability Action. It’s going to encourage more bad actors when you force sheriffs and police to sign on to agreements with ICE, then say if you get sued, we’ll defend you.