Department Of Justice Sues New Jersey Over So-Called Sanctuary City Policies
TRENTON, N.J. (CBSNewYork/AP) – The U.S. Department of Justice is suing the state of New Jersey over its so-called sanctuary policies.
Attorney General William Barr announced the lawsuit Monday, saying law enforcement officers are being "put in harm's way by these ideologically driven policies." He said the federal government is also suing the county that's home to Seattle.
The Justice Department alleges New Jersey is violating federal law by prohibiting state and local law enforcement from sharing information about inmates in the U.S. illegally. Washington state's King County was hit with a lawsuit over a policy that prohibits the Department of Homeland Security from using the King County International Airport-Boeing Field for deportation flights.
WEB EXTRA: Read the DOJ's complaint against NJ (pdf)
"Today is a significant escalation in the federal government's effort to confront the resistance of sanctuary cities," Barr told an audience of officers at the National Sheriffs' Association to roaring applause.
Some cities have put laws in place that prohibit the sharing of information with immigration officials. Immigration officials have sent subpoenas to Denver and New York City over requests for information on immigrants about to be released from jail.
Last week in New York, Homeland Security suspended "trusted traveler" programs that speed their re-entry into the U.S. over a law that prohibits state officials from sharing motor vehicle data with immigration officers.
WEB EXTRA: Talking Points: NYC, ICE Battle Over Sanctuary City Policy
The attorney general said the Justice Department would be "robustly supporting" Homeland Security to use "all lawful means," including federal subpoenas, to obtain information about suspects they are seeking to deport.
"These policies are textbook examples of misguided ideology triumphing over commonsense law enforcement, and it is the public and the police who pay the price," Barr said.
The administration also sued the state of California to block a law that took effect Jan. 1 to ban new contracts with for-profit prison companies, including thousands of immigration detention beds that the federal government pays for in the state.
President Donald Trump has been trying since he took office to punish sanctuary cities. In 2017 Jeff Sessions, then attorney general, said such cities would not receive grant money unless they gave federal immigration authorities access to jails and provide advance notice when someone in the country illegally is about to be released from prison. A federal judge blocked the punishment from being enforced, and the cities got the money.
Federal authorities have tried lawsuits before, suing the state of California over its sanctuary law in 2018. A federal appeals court rejected the bulk of the administration's lawsuit, though Barr said Monday he was hopeful the government would win before the Supreme Court.
That hasn't stopped Trump from criticizing the policies and noting, in bloody detail, certain cases where immigrants in the U.S. illegally have committed crimes. On Monday, speaking to the nation's governors, Trump said that it was essential the country comply with immigration enforcement requests.
"Jurisdictions that adopt sanctuary policies and instead release these criminals put all of Americans in harm's way," Trump said. "I know we have different policies, different feelings, different everything. But sanctuary cities are causing us a tremendous problem in this country. We have stone-cold killers that they don't want to hand over to us and then they escape into communities and they cause, in some cases, tremendous havoc."
But studies have shown immigrants are less likely to commit crime than U.S. citizens.
New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal said the Trump administration "is sacrificing public safety for political expedience" and that it is sad the Justice Department had "agreed to go along with this election-year stunt."
Barr also said Monday that federal officials were "meticulously reviewing the actions of certain district attorneys who have adopted policies of charging foreign nationals with lesser offenses for the express purpose of avoiding the federal immigration consequences of those nationals' criminal conduct."
(© Copyright 2020 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)