The last time the Northern way of life was threatened this much, Robert E. Lee was digging in around Gettysburg. Now, Lee’s unfrozen compatriot, Jeff Sessions, is bringing open war to urban centers under the guise of bringing “sanctuary cities” to heel. The fact that many of these sanctuary cities are in the South doesn’t even matter to these people.
The latest attack is in the form of a document request. From the Washington Post:
The Justice Department on Wednesday escalated its attempt to crack down on so-called “sanctuary” jurisdictions, threatening to subpoena 23 states, cities and other localities that have policies the department suspects might be unlawfully interfering with immigration enforcement…
In a new letter, Bureau of Justice Assistance Director Jon Adler said officials remained “concerned” that the places had policies that violate the law, even after their previous responses. He asked for a new bevy of documents — including “any orders, directives, instructions, or guidance to your law enforcement employees” — and said the department would subpoena the materials if necessary.
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Any… guidance? What kind of over-broad request is this?
Sessions and his Justice goons are threatening subpoenas if cities don’t give him what he wants, but since what he really wants is for cities to hand him their illegal immigrants in chains instead of doing police work, it will be hard for mayors to comply.
Moreover, like, the first mayor who gets to go to jail for DEFYING Jefferson Beauregard Sessions kind of gets to be mayor for life.
Politically, it’s a good battle for Trump and Sessions. The Americans who don’t live in cities tend to hate cities. And the Americans who do live in cities aren’t going to vote for Trump anyway. New York City, for instance, is one of the more anti-Trump places on the planet, and the dude is FROM here. Trump is not losing votes from any city-dwellers with this mess, but he’s potentially gaining support of people who visited San Francisco once and saw two gay guys kissing in the park and shouted a slur at them but couldn’t be heard because it was too “loud.”
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Legally, it’s a stupid fight. Courts have ruled, a couple of times now, that Sessions can’t just pull funding from cities based on his whims without an act of Congress. If he does get around to subpoenas, those will be fought strenuously in jurisdictions around the country. And even if Sessions “wins,” all he gets is a bunch of documents that show that local police care about local issues and not about enforcing national immigration policy.
The federal government has it’s own branch of law enforcement to do this work, if it so chooses.
I can’t actually bring myself to use this particular argument against Sessions, because every part of me has been trained to hate this stupid argument, but let me close by quoting… the TENTH AMENDMENT:
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.
On the third day at Gettysburg, Lee ordered his men to charge across an open field towards a well fortified position. His troops were slaughtered. The South never sent troops into Northern territory again.
Justice Department threatens to subpoena records in escalating battle with ‘sanctuary’ jurisdictions [Washington Post]
Elie Mystal is the Executive Editor of Above the Law and the Legal Editor for More Perfect. He can be reached @ElieNYC on Twitter, or at [email protected]. He will resist.