President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice issued a three-page directive to crack down on sanctuary city officials who defy the federal government’s immigration enforcement efforts.
A Tuesday evening memo written by acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove, Trump’s former defense attorney, instructed the DOJ’s prosecutors to open investigations into state and local leaders who obstruct the administration’s deportation plans.
‘Federal law prohibits state and local actors from resisting, obstructing, and otherwise failing to comply with lawful immigration-related commands and requests.’
Bove’s memo details “interim decisions and policy changes pending confirmation” of Trump’s U.S. attorney general nominee, Pam Bondi.
The correspondence outlined “three of the most serious threats facing the American people”: cartels and transnational criminal organizations, violent crimes committed by illegal aliens, and the fentanyl crisis.
Bove called violent gangs, including Tren de Aragua and MS-13, a “scourge on society resulting in an unstable and unsafe border and huge flows of illegal immigration in violation of U.S. law.”
“The Justice Department must, and will, work to eradicate these threats,” Bove wrote. “Indeed, it is the responsibility of the Justice Department to defend the Constitution and, accordingly, to lawfully execute the policies that the American people elected President Trump to implement. The Justice Department’s responsibility, proudly shouldered by each of its employees, 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. The Department’s personnel must come together in the offices that taxpayers have funded to do this vitally important work.”
In order to advance the administration’s deportation goals, Bove noted that the DOJ must move to address the issue of local leaders obstructing immigration enforcement.
States and local jurisdictions are required under the Supremacy Clause to comply with the federal government’s immigration laws, Bove noted.
“Federal law prohibits state and local actors from resisting, obstructing, and otherwise failing to comply with lawful immigration-related commands and requests,” Bove wrote. “The U.S. Attorney’s Offices and litigating components of the Department of Justice shall investigate incidents involving any such misconduct for potential prosecution, including for obstructing federal functions.”
On Monday, Trump signed a slew of immigration-related executive orders, among them, “Protecting the American People Against Invasion,” which called for the federal government to withhold funding to sanctuary jurisdictions.
“Further, the Attorney General and the Secretary of Homeland Security shall evaluate and undertake any other lawful actions, criminal or civil, that they deem warranted based on any such jurisdiction’s practices that interfere with the enforcement of Federal law,” the executive order read.
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