Bondi scraps limits on cooperation between D.C. police and federal immigration agents
The Attorney General Pam Bondi abandoned local directives on Thursday which seriously limited cooperation between police in Washington, DC, and federal agents from immigration and customs application and other immigration agencies.
The movement amounts to a radical reversal of “Sanctuary” policies In the national capital, allowing the metropolitan police service, for the moment, to cooperate fully with the federal immigration application as President Trump says more control In the Columbia district, citing concerns about crime and disorder. City officials quickly rejected the legality of the Bondi order, saying that they were not linked by this.
Trump has cited concerns about crime and homelessness to launch a high-level anti-crime repression in Washington, Deployment of national guard troops And hundreds of agents of federal agencies such as the Drug Enforcement Administration, customs and border protection, ice and FBI to patrol in certain parts of the city.
The repression of Mr. Trump is an executive decree earlier this week which actually put the Metropolitan police service under federal control by invoking emergency powers which last 30 days.
Bondi, who was responsible for overseeing federal requests for the police service, wrote in a directive that she made Terry Cole, the current DEA head, the emergency police chief in Washington. She also cited Mr. Trump’s emergency declaration to reverse several local police policies.
“DC will not remain a sanctuary city, actively protecting criminal foreigners,” Bondi on Fox News said on Thursday.
Bondi canceled Guide issued by Washington police chief Pamela Smith, earlier Thursday, who allowed the police to transport ice agents and their prisoners and share immigration information during traffic stops, but who has always prohibited most local implications in the federal immigration application.
It also deleted the advice that prohibited DC police from digging the databases to determine someone’s immigration status, even when there is no underlying criminal mandate.
Bondi eliminated the rules that prevented DC police from arresting individuals on the basis of administrative immigration mandates signed by ice officials – not judges – and helping federal agents during these arrests. The canceled policy forced officers to have a criminal link before making an arrest, prohibiting arrests only on the basis of alleged violations of the Civil Immigration Act.
Bondi’s order has canceled a local policy that previously prevented DC police from transferring non-citizen ice prisoners to the ice, based on what are called “relaxation” requests made by the Federal Agency, unless there is a criminal mandate signed by a judge.
Late Thursday, the mayor of DC Muriel Bowser published a letter written by the Attorney General of the District of Columbia, Brian Schwalb, who argued that the Bondi directives were not authorized by federal law.
“I think that the order of Bondi is illegal and that you are not legally forced to follow him,” said Schwalb in the letter, which was addressed to Smith, the Washington police chief DC.
Schwalb said that the capital’s police “should” continue to follow Smith’s orders “and not the order of an official not appointed by the mayor”.
As part of its large -scale repression of illegal immigration, the Trump administration sought to penalize cities and “sanctuar” states which refuse to cooperate fully with federal immigration agents, threatening them with prosecution and reductions in federal funding.
