Following months of national media coverage over the handling of illegal aliens in his custody, Montgomery County, Maryland, Executive Marc Elrich has somewhat reversed a sanctuary policy he signed into law.
The Trump administration has asked the Supreme Court to quash California’s migrant sanctuary law, which broadly prohibits state and local law enforcement from cooperating with federal immigration authorities.
Officials in Montgomery County, Maryland, blamed conservative media, the White House and a top immigration official Thursday for drawing attention to a recent spate of sexual assaults carried out by illegal aliens.
State legislatures and the U.S. Justice Department should challenge local governments’ sanctuary policies for illegal immigrants, said Hans von Spakovsky, a senior legal fellow at The Heritage Foundation.
Newly-released information shows that the New York Police Department denied thousands of Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainer requests over a one-year timespan.
“It’s incredulous that it’s OK for these law enforcement agencies and these jurisdictions to enforce the laws that they’re sworn to uphold, but when we come in to do our enforcement that we’re sworn to uphold, all the sudden it’s a problem,” he said.
Supporters of open borders and sanctuary policies must be overjoyed by the latest report from the Department of Homeland Security. The Border Patrol intercepted more than 144,000 illegal aliens at the southwest border in May, the largest monthly total in more than a dozen years.
Civil and immigrant rights groups announced they are suing the Homeland Security secretary, ICE agents and Vermont’s DMV commissioner over immigration enforcement practices in Vermont.
Vermont seems likely to keep losing these annual grants unless one side or the other gives way, or a federal judge requires immediate action.
The state of Vermont’s policy of partial non-cooperation with federal immigration police has already cost Vermont police the use of about $2.3 million in federal heroin-trafficking money. And that figure may climb to almost $2.8 million.
Four Guatemalan nationals were recently apprehended and charged with illegal alien smuggling near the Newport area, according to the Office of the United States Attorney for the District of Vermont.