Jeff Sessions Threatens To Make Cities Less Safe If They're Not More Racist

Y'all need to stop defending Sessions, he's a cynical threat to urban safety.

The cynicism at the heart of the Trump administration’s war against sanctuary cities is so naked that people have stopped pointing it out. The core conceit is that local police make their own cities less safe by refusing to report immigration status when they are busy trying to make their cities safe. In response, the administration proposes to cut off funding FOR POLICE, until they comply with the federal government’s bigotry.

It’s like saying “the races shouldn’t swim together, so I’m going to pull the lifeguards until all the non-segregated pools are forced to close down.” Even if you agreed with the disgusting point, making everybody less safe is the worst possible way to force everybody backwards.

And yet Sessions is allowed to continue on his quest, while “country first” Republicans say nothing. Here’s the latest from NBC News:

Attorney General Jeff Sessions warned the nation’s cities Tuesday that they will lose millions in grant money if they don’t help federal agents deport suspected undocumented immigrants held in local jails.

Sessions wants localities to give federal agents access to local detention centers, and he wants local authorities to notify federal agents 48 hours before wanted immigrants are scheduled for release. The last bit is a dodge around a recent Massachusetts Supreme Court ruling which said local police could not detain immigrants longer just so the feds can get to them. Deportation, it ruled, was a civil matter, and holding a person in jail for it when they’ve already been scheduled to be released for their crime constitutes an illegal arrest.

Hence, Sessions is now demanding notification as opposed to unconstitutional detention.

I can accept that reasonable people disagree with the best policy here. Hell, in most cases I’m for aggressive federal oversight of local police. In the instant case, I don’t think the federal government should impose bigotry in a way that will make it more difficult for local police to engage in the community policing we know works, but I guess you can just chalk that up to a “policy” difference.

Sponsored

What I don’t get is why more people, and more Republicans especially, aren’t outraged by the stick Sessions is trying to use to bully local police. Sessions is threatening to hold $250 million of crime-fighting aid hostage unless cities comply with his rules. Crime. Fighting. Aid. Can you imagine the outcry if, I don’t know, a BLACK president threatened to withhold crime fighting money from local police until they stopped murdering black people in the streets? How would that play in Missouri or North Carolina?

Moreover, the cities Sessions is targeting are the cities most likely to be the targets of a terrorist attack. If New York or San Francisco or one of the other civilized places in this country gets hit, and Trump and Sessions start screaming about “radical Islamic terrorism” while ignoring ALL THE MONEY they drained from urban police forces, I’m going to lose my damn mind.

It’s one thing to set the Reichstag fire, but Jeff Sessions is out here threatening to puncture the tires on the fire trucks, and NOBODY in his party seems inclined to call him on it.

And yet “Democrats” are out here defending the “honor” and “integrity” of Jefferson Beauregard Sessions? Because Sessions is making it mildly more difficult for Trump to fire Robert Mueller, a move that Trump will get around to anyway, eventually? Later, Dems are going to wonder why Latinos don’t flock to the polls in support of whatever neoliberal, Mike Tirico looking f**ker they put up there. “Doesn’t a Latino citizen who gets harassed by ICE once a week at the bus stop know that Trump aides took opposition research meetings with a foreign government? I know the specter of being illegally detained because you called 9-1-1 seems unfair, but the Democratic party can’t get distracted from the real problems with the Trump administration.”

Jeff Sessions has gots to go. His hard-on for sanctuary cities is actually going to get people killed.

Sponsored


Elie Mystal is an editor of Above the Law and the Legal Editor for More Perfect. He can be reached @ElieNYC on Twitter, or at elie@abovethelaw.com. He will resist.

Earlier: