By JOEL GEHRKE • 5/19/16 1:55 PM

Justice Department officials forced the city of New Orleans to adopt sanctuary city policies that prevent local law enforcement from helping federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials, according to a pair of top Republicans.

"It is outrageous that DOJ would seek a consent decree to actually inhibit the ability of the federal government to enforce federal law," House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., and South Carolina Rep. Trey Gowdy, who chairs the Judiciary subcommittee in immigration, wrote Thursday to Attorney General Loretta Lynch.

The Justice Department brought about the new policy through a two-step process, according to the lawmakers. The first step was the threat of a civil rights lawsuit against the New Orleans Policy Department, in 2011, which led to a consent decree in 2012. Justice then helped New Orleans develop new policies to implement that order, which came out in February of 2016.

The new policies bar New Orleans police from helping ICE in any "immigration enforcement operations," the lawmakers noted. They demanded that Lynch turn over "any and all communications" pertaining to New Orleans Police Department procedures, the civil rights suit, and the new implementation of the new policies.

"By hindering the ability of ICE to apprehend criminal aliens, DOJ consciously disregards the safety and security of the American public by enabling the release of these criminals back into our communities to commit more crimes," Goodlatte and Gowdy wrote. "It also places ICE agents and officers at greater risk when they are forced to arrest these criminal aliens who are no longer in a secure jail facility, but in public places where they can more readily escape or access a weapon."

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/go...rticle/2591786