© James Lawler Duggan/Reuters
US Attorney General Jeff Sessions has announced that sanctuary cities must cooperate with federal immigration enforcement or face the wrath of cuts in federal grants. The new policy outlines requirements cities need to follow to receive funding.
On Tuesday afternoon, Sessions released a
statement threatening to cut lucrative funding related to the Byrne Justice Assistance Grants for so-called sanctuary cities, where local and state law enforcement are not bound to federal requests on immigration enforcement. Many cities rely on federal funding for law enforcement in their communities.
The requirements set forth by Sessions state that the sanctuary cities need to give Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers access to their jails and can't stop their local police from providing ICE the immigration status of the people they arrest. Moreover, the cities must give ICE a 48-hour notice before releasing people from custody who get arrested, if ICE has a detainer on them.
"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 in the statement.
"This is what the American people should be able to expect from their cities and states, and these long overdue requirements will help us take down MS-13 and other violent transnational gangs, and make our country safer," the top US law enforcement official added.
Federal funding will not be revoked for any cities that have already received it, or cities that are in the process of getting the money this year. The new rules will go into effect next year, according to the Daily Beast.President Donald Trump has spoken in the past about targeting sanctuary cities, but immigrant rights activists disagree with him and argue that when law enforcement is blocked from communication with ICE, immigrants have less fear about telling law enforcement about crimes.
For many cities, losing the Byrne Justice Assistance Grant will be a big deal and fighting back may not be an option. In March, Austin, which does not fully cooperate with federal immigration enforcement, said that they may have to start complying because they rely on the grant funding, the Daily Beast reported.
Cecelia Friedman Levin, senior policy counsel for the immigration justice group Asista, believes undocumented immigrants may think twice about calling law enforcement in the current political climate.
"Abusers commonly threaten victims that reaching out for help will result in their removal or separation from their children," she said, the
Guardian reported.
"Before the executive orders on immigration," she added, "the advice advocates would commonly give is that the police are here to help, that there are policies in place that protect all victims. But now, depending on the jurisdiction, those advocates may pause before giving that same advice, especially if they're seeing increased immigration raids in their communities and given the wide breadth of enforcement priorities laid out by the administration."
The announcement from the US attorney general comes on the heels of Trump's negative comments about Sessions. Trump
told the
Wall Street Journal on Tuesday afternoon that he was "very disappointed" in Sessions.
Among unreported violent victimizations, the percentage of victims who believed the police would not or could not help doubled, from 10 percent in 1994 to 20 percent in 2010.
During a five-year period from 2006 to 2010, about three in 10 crimes involving a weapon and an injury went unreported to police. Among these, the most common reason (42 percent) for not reporting was fear of retaliation or of getting the offender into trouble.
This fear was also the most common reason (46 percent) victims did not report intimate partner violence to the police. Crimes perpetrated by someone the victim knew well, such as a neighbor, coworker or teacher (62 percent), or by a casual acquaintance (60 percent) were more likely to go unreported than crimes committed by a stranger (51 percent).
From 2006 to 2010, a greater percentage of victimizations against men (55 percent) than women (49 percent) were not reported to the police. A greater percentage of violent victimizations against white non-Hispanics (54 percent) than black non-Hispanics (46 percent) went unreported to the police. Among victims of violence, women (20 percent) were more likely than men (8 percent) to say they did not report to the police because they were afraid of reprisal or of getting the offender in trouble.
In November 2016 you have a few Libtard Dumocrats wanting to give illegals the means to vote in an attempt to sway the election in favor of their queen bee, even have one sanctuary city encouraging them to sign up for an ID card. I have a better idea for you politico idiots.., make them pass a road test and give them an “undocumented driver’s license” which would inadvertently make our roads safer by mitigating paranoid drivers going to and from work.
Bottom line is the illegals (or undocumented immigrants), as those pacifists like to call them, knew the risks of entering the country illegally, and yet our government continues to give them free healthcare among many other benefits that a legal citizen has.
And why is Trump continuously being grilled by the fake MSM news regarding this ongoing problem that started decades ago, long before his tenure. Why, because he has the gonads to do something about it?
Problem is.., he’s doing it all wrong.
1) Take some of those billions of dollars our Industrial/Military Complex has been unable to account for in the Middle East and lock down our borders. That is what the constitution says the military was created for…, to secure and protect our borders.
2) Provide a fast track citizenship to all the hard working illegals which pay taxes , support communities, boost the economy. They even help the 1% capitalists get richer. Just think, all the new citizenship fees would total well over $10billion. That could actual pay for border lockdown or that stupid wall idea Trump has.
3) Target and round up only the non-law abiding criminal illegal dirt bags and send them anywhere which they would have to cross an ocean to get back. Shame there isn’t another place like Australia. After all, that’s what England did and history does have a tendency to repeat itself.