DOJ threatens to prosecute local officials over immigration enforcement
The Trump administration has directed federal prosecutors nationwide to investigate and potentially bring criminal charges against state and local officials who don’t cooperate with the president’s plans to carry out mass deportations, according to a document obtained by The Washington Post.
In a memo to Justice Department employees late Tuesday, acting deputy attorney general Emil Bove wrote that the supremacy clause of the Constitution and other legal authorities “require state and local actors to comply with the Executive Branch’s immigration enforcement initiatives.”
He ordered U.S. attorneys’ offices across the country to investigate any official who defies those efforts and consider prosecuting them on charges that, if they’re convicted, could send them to prison.
“Federal law prohibits state and local actors from resisting, obstructing, and otherwise failing to comply with lawful immigration-related commands,” wrote Bove, a former federal prosecutor who spent recent years in private practice and was one of Donald Trump’s defense lawyers in his criminal cases.
A Justice Department spokesperson confirmed that the memo was sent out Tuesday night but otherwise declined to comment. In a separate memo Wednesday, the agency’s new leadership announced a different but also significant change in the civil rights division, halting any litigation or related actions in cases left over from the Biden administration. The freeze seems to jeopardize police reform agreements the Justice Department negotiated in recent months with cities including Minneapolis, Louisville and Memphis.