Thread: Senators to Obama, DHS: Stop ignoring illegal alien sanctuar

Senators to Obama, DHS: Stop ignoring illegal alien sanctuaries
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Jim Kouri
, Law Enforcement Examiner
November 10, 2011 - Like this? Subscribe to get instant updates.
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With a Justice Department fiercely focusing on taking legal action against state laws that help to combat illegal aliens and crimes they commit, a group of U.S. Senators is asking the Obama Administration to stop ignoring local ordinances that undermine federal laws by offering undocumented aliens sanctuary.

Two cities were recently added to the growing list of so-called sanctuary cities that protect illegal -- even criminal -- aliens from Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents: Washington, D.C., and New York City.



The fact that the President of the United States lives in a location officially designated a sanctuary from the President's own administration has reached the level of absurdity, according to former police commander and homeland security specialist Sid Franes.



"Doesn't anyone in the mainstream media see the anti-American, pro-Mexican leanings of the current White House occupants? There should be moral outrage that federal agencies that deal with illegal aliens don't have authority to enforce federal immigration laws, thanks to Mayor Gray's executive order," Franes noted.


In battling local immigration control measures nationwide, the Obama Department of Justice has claimed that they conflict with federal immigration law and undermine the government’s careful balance of immigration enforcement priorities and objectives, according to the Judicial Watch news blog.

The Obama Administration has made this argument recently in DOJ cases against Arizona and Alabama. South Carolina is already in the sights of Attorney General Eric Holder and Obama, having just passed a state law similar in scope to Arizona's and Alabama's statutes.

But what is the administration doing about local governments that refuse to cooperate with federal immigration authorities and blatantly ignore the legal status of arrested individuals? A group of Senate Judiciary Committee members posed the question to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano this week.

They specifically mentioned Cook County Illinois where local authorities openly flip the finger at the feds by refusing to report illegal immigrants who come in contact with police, even dangerous criminals. In fact, in 2007 Judicial Watch took legal action against the Chicago Police Department -- which has a don’t-ask-don’t-tell immigration policy -- after learning of an illegal immigrant sanctuary resolution that was being considered by Cook County’s Board of Commissioners at the time.

In a letter to Napolitano this week, the Judiciary Committee members -- GOP Senators Chuck Grassley (Iowa), John Cornyn (Texas), Tom Coburn (Oklahoma) and Jeff Sessions (Alabama) -- cite a recent meeting with a high-ranking Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) official who confirmed that Cook County creates a major problem for enforcement efforts. In fact, the ICE associate director of removal operations said Cook County’s egregious example of sanctuary city policies presents “an accident waiting to happen.â€

City Sanctuary regulations circumvent the law by adopting a don't ask, don't tell policy. A police officer who follows the city regulation to not question a person who he or she suspects is an illegal alien due to probable cause (as in was witness to a previous arrest and subsequent disclosure of illegal alien status or deportation) has placed the officer in violation of Federal Law, and thus that city regulation conflicts with U.S. Immigration law.

It is the responsibility of the U.S. Attorney General, when notified of an entity acting in contravention of U.S. law, to investigate and if necessary bring such organizations before a federal grand jury for possible indictment.

Failure of the U.S. Attorney General to do so, is in of itself, a felony.