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.
A Mexican citizen was sentenced to time served on Monday in the United States District Court in Burlington for transporting three illegal aliens within the United States.
A spike in illegal crossings at the Vermont-Canadian border has some law enforcement officials questioning the state’s fair and impartial policing policy that prohibits officers from asking about a person’s immigration status.
Illegal crossings are up 50 percent in the last year for the U.S. Border Patrol Swanton sector, which covers all of the Vermont border and parts of New York and New Hampshire.
A Newark, New Jersey, man has been sentenced to a year of probation after pleading guilty to smuggling two illegal aliens across the northern U.S. border at Beecher Falls in October 2017.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ order conditioning federal aid to local law enforcement on compliance with immigration statutes is unlawful, a federal judge in Chicago ruled late Thursday.
Border-zone legislation recently introduced by U.S. Sens. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and Patty Murray, D-Wash., is drawing sharp criticism from illegal immigration opponents who say the bill would “hamstring” the nation’s immigration enforcement.
“An astonishing one in five individuals incarcerated in federal prisons is an illegal alien, which amounts to a $1.5 million bill every day to the American taxpayer.”
“You know you are getting welfare benefits. You have free health care coverage. And then you can hide, because the government itself is protecting these people even if they commit crime,” she concluded. “It’s going to be a utopia for illegal immigrants.”
California law enforcement and local officials gathered at the White House on Wednesday to make it clear that Sacramento doesn’t speak for them on illegal immigration.
GOP Rep. Robert Pittenger of North Carolina introduced a bill Tuesday that would defund sanctuary cities and use that money to put towards the construction of a border wall along the southern U.S.-Mexico border.