Administration Names, Warns 500 Sanctuary Jurisdictions

The Department of Homeland Security is putting more than 500 sanctuary jurisdictions across the country on notice that the Trump administration views them as obstructing immigration enforcement—as it attempts to increase pressure on communities it says are standing in the way of the president's mass deportations agenda. The department on Thursday published a list of the jurisdictions and said each one will receive formal notification that the government has deemed them noncompliant and if they're believed to be in violation of any federal criminal statutes, the AP reports. The list was published on the department's website.

"These sanctuary city politicians are endangering Americans and our law enforcement in order to protect violent criminal illegal aliens," DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said in a press release. The administration has repeatedly targeted communities, states, and jurisdictions that it says aren't doing enough to help Immigration and Customs Enforcement make good on President Trump's campaign promises to remove millions of people in the country illegally.

• The criteria: The list was compiled using a number of factors, including whether the cities or localities identified themselves as sanctuary jurisdictions, how much they complied already with federal officials enforcing immigration laws, if they had restrictions on sharing information with immigration enforcement, and if they had any legal protections for people in the country illegally, according to the department.
• Next steps: Federal agencies then are to identify federal grants or contracts with those states or local jurisdictions identified as sanctuaries and suspending or terminating the money, according to an executive order signed by Trump last month.

• The jurisdictions' argument: Communities that don't cooperate with ICE often say they do so because immigrants then feel safer coming forward if they're a witness to or victim of a crime. And they argue that immigration enforcement is a federal task, and they need to focus their limited dollars on fighting crime.
• Nevada is baffled: Las Vegas and the state are on the DHS list, though the governor and mayor have argued that they are not sanctuaries, per the Nevada Independent. The stakes are especially high in Nevada: It has the largest per capita population of undocumented people in the nation and collections billions of dollars per year for programs including Medicaid, infrastructure, and workforce development. The Trump administration is using "the threat of withholding already designated and relevant federal funds as a means to compel compliance," Athar Hassebullah, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada, said Thursday, adding, "It is totally unethical." (The administration lost a round in court over holding up funding as punishment.)