Attorney General Jeff Sessions announces lawsuit against California for sanctuary policies

On Tuesday, the Justice Department filed a lawsuit against the state of California over the state’s “sanctuary” laws created to protect undocumented immigrants.

Justice Department lawyers argue that California is blocking enforcement efforts by the Department of Homeland Security and imposing other, impermissible obligations on the federal government. “SAD!” Brown said, channeling his inner Trump.

Echoing the tone and favored language of President Trump on Twitter, Gov. The Immigrant Worker Protection Act prohibits local business from sharing employee records with federal officials without a court order or subpoena. And taxpayers shouldn’t have to double-pay for local resources to do immigration enforcement, which is a federal job.

“I did not give specific information that could have endangered law enforcement”, she said, explaining she stood by her decision at a press conference. This breaks federal law that pertains to communication between government agencies and the Immigration and Naturalization Service, DOJ officials said.

Protesters say they wanted to send a message to Sessions that Californians support immigrants and won’t cooperate with immigration policies they view as racist.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who plans to speak today at a Law Enforcement Legislative Day event in Sacramento, believes the California laws in question are “unjust, unfair, and unconstitutional”, according to prepared remarks reported by the California Sun.

“California is using every power it has – and some it doesn’t – to frustrate federal law enforcement”.

“You got a state of California that wants to put politics ahead of public safety, ahead of officer safety”, stated Homan.

Last month, President Trump said “if we ever pulled our ICE out, if we ever said, ‘Hey, let California alone, let them figure it out for themselves, ‘ in two months they’d be begging for us to come back”.

Brown responded in a statement by calling the lawsuit a “political stunt”. But our laws bar local law enforcement officers from “performing the functions of an immigration officer” by, among other things, alerting ICE when an undocumented immigrant is about to be released from custody, or asking a person about his or her immigration status during routine interactions.

Copyright 2018 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/. A senior Justice Department official said there is no update if Schaaf will be charged.

CARRIE JOHNSON, BYLINE: Hey there. “The people of California will not be bowed by the Trump Administration’s brazen aggression and intimidation tactics”. What is this latest lawsuit about?

In addition to the ongoing litigation over sanctuary cities, the mayor of Oakland, California, recently drew sharp rebuke from federal officials when she announced in advance that Immigration and Customs Enforcement were preparing to hold enforcement operations in her city, which officials said allowed some priority targets to evade capture. Another law covers state and local law enforcement.

That’s not the argument the Justice Department is offering.

But the Trump administration faces a serious practical difficulty if it hopes to prevail with this claim: It will need to find five votes on the Supreme Court, and conservative Justice Clarence Thomas – who in a 2009 opinion wrote that he is “increasingly skeptical of this Court’s “purposes and objectives” pre-emption jurisprudence” – may not join a majority opinion. In addition to immigration policy, Becerra’s office has sued the feds over everything from health care to environmental regulations to consumer rights.

Sessions also rejected accusations that the Trump administration seeks to “wall off America”.

KELLY: Aha, it all comes around. The Trump administration claims that this provision of state law is invalid, but that argument is tough to square with the Anti-Commandeering Doctrine.

Some of the biggest supporters of sanctuary laws have also been named in the lawsuit, including Governor Jerry Brown and State Attorney General Xavier Becerra, who previously issued a threat to employers.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions attends a meeting at the White House on February 22.

And the tension between states and the federal government is certainly noting new; Texas played a leading role opposing the policies of former President Barack Obama.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions spoke in California Wednesday, and he dropped the hammer on politicians with a “radical, open borders agenda”.