DOJ Gives Sanctuary Cities One Month to Prove Compliance With the Law

The Department of Justice sent a round of warning letters to several sanctuary cities last week, including Seattle, Oakland, and the entire state of Vermont, demanding evidence that they are cooperating with federal immigration authorities. In the letter, the DOJ warned officials in those jurisdictions that if they did not provide documentation of said cooperation by May 14, subpoenas would be issued for the required evidence.

“When cities and states enact policies that thwart the federal government’s ability to enforce federal immigration law, they choose to place the protection of criminal aliens over the safety of their communities,” Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in a statement. “The Justice Department will not tolerate this intentional effort to undermine public safety and the rule of law, and I continue to remind all jurisdictions to reconsider policies that put their residents in harm’s way.”

To no real surprise, the Justice Department’s threats met stern defiance from politicians in these jurisdictions, all of whom consider the Trump administration’s crackdown on sanctuary cities to be against the law.

“Our city complies with federal immigration law and asks that the Department of Justice and ICE do the same,” said Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan. “The federal government does not get to run our cities or convert our local law enforcement officials into immigration cops. I implore this administration to focus on real public safety threats, like the opioid crisis, instead of unnecessarily threatening our residents and mayors across the country.”

Durkan, like her Democrat cohorts in California and Vermont, has taken direct action to prohibit law enforcement authorities in Seattle from sharing information with federal immigration officials. In February, she required that all access requests originating from ICE be sent through her office before issuing a response. One doubts that many (if any) of these requests have been fulfilled since then.

“Unlike some in the Trump administration, Seattle respects the rule of law,” the mayor continued. “Our city is tasked with protecting public safety for all people who call Seattle home. We will also protect our residents from unjust law-enforcement actions.”

In other words, deportation for illegal aliens. Even those who have committed crimes while staying in this country illegally. This is what it means to Jenny Durkan to “respect the rule of law.”

We continue to hope against hope that these cities get what’s coming to them. The law-abiding citizens that reside in Oakland, San Francisco, Seattle, Vermont, and other sanctuary cities do not deserve to live under these law-defying Democrats who would rather protect criminals than enforce the law. Well, okay, some of them DO deserve it, because they’re the yahoos who voted these rats into office. But that doesn’t change the fact that the law is the law and unless these cities are going to secede from the U.S., they need to allow the federal government its full power of enforcement.

If they refuse, then at the very least we need to give their federal grant money to cities that WILL.