Justice Dept Memo Calls for Investigation and Arrest of State and Local Officials defying hardline immigration policies [View all]
Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove on Tuesday called for Justice Department attorneys to investigate and potentially prosecute state and local officials who refuse to enforce President Donald Trump’s hard-line immigration enforcement policies.
The directive came in a three-page internal email that Bove sent to all Justice Department employees on Jan. 21. The memo, which reflects some of the first known policy changes within the Trump administration’s Justice Department, instructs federal prosecutors to assist in implementing the policy objectives set out in President Trump’s recent executive orders on immigration and cartel activity. The document calls for a major reallocation of Justice Department resources to immigration-related prosecutions, including a directive for the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Forces to assist in the enforcement of Trump’s immigration agenda.
The memo asserts that the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause requires “state and local actors” to “comply” with the executive branch’s immigration enforcement initiatives. “Federal law prohibits state and local actors from resisting, obstructing, and otherwise failing to comply with lawful immigration-related commands,” wrote Bove, a former criminal defense attorney for Trump who is currently serving as the Justice Department’s interim deputy attorney general. He further instructed U.S. attorneys’ offices nationwide to “investigate instances involving any such misconduct for potential prosecution.”
https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/justice-dept-memo-calls-for-investigations-of-state-and-local-officials
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