On Wednesday, the Justice Department told 29 cities, counties and states in the US that they are believed to be in violation of laws prohibiting their ability to limit the amount of information they share with federal immigration officials, and demanded details demonstrating their compliance.
The move could see the jurisdictions becoming part of a list of five other counties and cities that the US government says are in violation of federal law, and increases the attempts by President Donald Trump to financially penalize the so-called sanctuary cities, which his administration says are sheltering undocumented immigrants. Trump quickly signed an executive order to cut federal funding to such cities after becoming President and the Justice Department says that locales found to be violating the law will be no longer be eligible for grants from a federal-local law enforcement support program.
The Justice Department says that the locales concerned have been preliminarily found to be in violation and need to outline how they have been compliant with the law that prevents local officials from preventing the exchange of data relating to the immigration status of individuals.
Illinois, Vermont, the District of Columbia, Seattle, Oregon, Denver and 11 Californian counties or cities are among the 29. In a statement, Attorney General, Jeff Sessions said that jurisdictions with sanctuary policies believe more in protecting criminal undocumented immigrants that than their own law abiding citizens or in obeying federal law.