President Trump will sign executive orders Monday that advance his crackdown on illegal immigration, including targeting sanctuary cities.
It is the latest of Mr. Trump’s aggressive moves against illegal immigration that have been a hallmark of both his terms in the Oval Office.
“It’s quite simple: obey the law, respect the law, and don’t obstruct federal immigration officials and law enforcement officials when they are simply trying to remove public safety threats from our nation’s communities,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters at a briefing Monday.
“This administration is determined to enforce our immigration laws,” she said.
Mr. Trump is scheduled to sign the orders later Monday.
Under the orders, Attorney General Pam Bondi and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem will have to publish a list of state and local jurisdictions that “obstruct the enforcement of federal immigration laws.”
The order will direct them to “provide a list of sanctuary cities in which local officials are not complying with this federal order and are not complying with federal immigration laws.”
A second will “strengthen and unleash America’s law enforcement to pursue criminals and protect innocent citizens,” Ms. Leavitt said.
Mr. Trump tried something similar in 2017, ordering Homeland Security to produce a weekly name-and-shame list of jurisdictions that limited cooperation with federal immigration authorities.
It quickly turned into a fiasco, with jurisdictions complaining that they were fully cooperative but got named anyway.
The effort was scuttled just weeks after it began.
The White House underscored the success in deporting illegal immigrant criminals by displaying 100 yard signs along the White House driveway, each one showcasing a photo of a deportee and the crime he allegedly committed.
Last week, a judge ruled that Mr. Trump’s order to withhold federal funds from jurisdictions that will not comply with immigration enforcement was too vague.
“The threat to withhold funding causes them irreparable injury in the form of budgetary uncertainty, deprivation of constitutional rights, and undermining trust between the cities and counties and the communities they serve,” U.S. District Judge William Orrick ruled.
The ruling came after the administration was sued by San Francisco, Sacramento, Santa Cruz, New Haven, Oakland, Emeryville, San Diego, Santa Fe, Seattle and Portland; and King County, Monterey County and Santa Clara County.
On his first day in office, Mr. Trump signed the order “protecting the American people against invasion.” It directed Ms. Noem and Ms. Bondi to undertake any lawful actions to ensure that so-called ’sanctuary’ jurisdictions, which seek to interfere with the lawful exercise of Federal law enforcement operations, do not receive access to Federal funds.”
Mr. Trump has issued more than 140 executive orders in his first 100 days in office, a milestone he will hit on Tuesday.
