President Trump Plans to sign two executive orders on Monday will increase his immigration crackdown. These include targeting local jurisdictions that the administration says are not cooperating with aggressive action on deportation.
The order is Trump's latest salvo for so-called sanctuary cities, meaning a jurisdiction that limits or rejects federal officials' efforts to arrest undocumented immigrants. As the president attempts to increase the pace of deportation, his administration is increasingly unhappy with some jurisdictions not retaining immigrants in prisons beyond the date of release, in order to facilitate federal officials to detain them.
White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said Monday that one executive order would direct Attorney General Pam Bondi and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to publish a list of national and local jurisdictions the Trump administration considers to be “sanctuary cities.”
Levitt said the second executive order “will unleash American law enforcement and pursue criminals.” The New York Post reported that the order is expected to address legal support for officers accused of misconduct and military equipment at local police stations.
The Trump administration has already sued the city of Rochester, New York, where it accused officials of illegally blocking immigration enforcement. And the Department of Justice is indicting Judge Milwaukee on charges of obstructing immigration agents.
Rochester mayor Malik D. Evans and city council president Miguel Melendez issued a joint statement on Friday criticizing the lawsuit.
“To his face, this complaint is not a legal practice but an exercise in political theatres, and the city of Rochester is committed to investing resources in public safety in everyone, not to the fact that it is not a federal government job in immigration enforcement.”
Meanwhile, a federal judge in San Francisco has temporarily blocked the government from enforcing some executive orders that directed the government to withhold funds from cities and counties that do not cooperate with federal immigration enforcement.
“It's very easy,” Levitt said Monday. “As per the law, respect the law and not interfere with federal immigration officials and law enforcement officials simply trying to remove the threat of public safety from our country's communities.”
The executive order is expected to be the 100th day of Trump's second term term on Tuesday. The White House plans to have a weekly event that will encourage his actions, starting with the crackdown on immigration.
The White House lawns lined up with mugshot style posters of undocumented immigrants who were arrested and accused of committing a crime Monday morning.
At a morning press conference, Trump's border emperor Tom Homan said the administration had 139,000 deportations. Those numbers are behind the Biden administration's final year pace.
He said the numbers would be higher, but few people turned back because the border intersection had fallen so significantly.
“Are I happy with that? The numbers are good,” he said. Well, why did they count the removal of the borders? ”
Homan said as of Tuesday the administration could create undocumented immigrants over the age of 14, providing fingerprints to the U.S. government or face criminal prosecution.
