The Department of Homeland Security is putting more than 500 “sanctuary jurisdictions” across the country – including the state of Connecticut and several of its towns – on notice that the Trump administration views them as obstructing immigration enforcement as it attempts to increase pressure on communities it believes are standing in the way of the president’s mass deportations agenda.
The department on Thursday published a list of the jurisdictions and said each one will receive formal notification that the government has deemed them noncompliant and if they’re believed to be in violation of any federal criminal statutes. The list was published on the department’s website.
“These sanctuary city politicians are endangering Americans and our law enforcement in order to protect violent criminal illegal aliens,” DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said in a press release.
The Trump administration has repeatedly targeted communities, states and jurisdictions that it says aren’t doing enough to help Immigration and Customs Enforcement as it seeks to make good on President Donald Trump’s campaign promises to remove millions of people in the country illegally.
The list was compiled using a number of factors, including whether the cities or localities identified themselves as sanctuary jurisdictions, how much they complied already with federal officials enforcing immigration laws, if they had restrictions on sharing information with immigration enforcement or had any legal protections for people in the country illegally, according to the department.
In Connecticut, the list includes the state itself as well as the municipalities of East Haven, Hamden, Hartford, New Haven, New London and Windham.
Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont said the state had been “falsely labeled.”
“Connecticut’s Trust Act, which was originally bipartisan, is consistent with federal constitutional standards and reflects sound public safety priorities,” Lamont said in a statement. “I am focused on making sure people feel safe in our schools, churches, and elsewhere. Nothing about this makes Connecticut a ‘sanctuary’ in any legal or practical sense – it makes our state one that upholds the Constitution, respects the rule of law, and prioritizes the safety and well-being of our communities.”
State Attorney General William Tong said in a statement that Connecticut was in full compliance with federal immigration law.
“There is nothing in our laws or statutes that says Connecticut is a ‘sanctuary’ state. We are not. That is a meaningless term,” Tong said. “It is the policy of the State of Connecticut to respect, honor and protect immigrants and immigrant families in compliance with the law.”
New London Mayor Michael Passero said his city, too, was not a “sanctuary jurisdiction,” and that he believed New London was mistakenly included on the list.
“I don’t particularly support the current administration’s immigration policies. I don’t believe the city, on the whole, supports those immigration policies,” Passero said. “But I also believe we operate completely within the law and respect the rule of law.”
At a Friday afternoon press conference at New Haven City Hall, Mayor Justin Elicker said the designation was expected and he was “proud of it.”
“New Haven is proudly a welcoming city,” Elicker said. “It’s one of our defining characteristics and values.”
“The Trump administration is trying to extort local communities to implement his cruel agenda,” Elicker said. “We will be no part of it.”
Responding to the Homeland Security charge that New Haven and other jurisdictions on the list were “shamefully obstructing the enforcement of federal immigration laws,” Elicker said that wasn’t true.
“The only thing that is shameful is President Trump,” Elicker said.
Trump signed an executive order on April 28 requiring the secretary of Homeland Security and the attorney general to publish a list of states and local jurisdictions that they considered to be obstructing federal immigration laws. The list is to be regularly updated.
Federal departments and agencies, working with the Office of Management and Budget, would then be tasked with identifying federal grants or contracts with those states or local jurisdictions that the federal government identified as “sanctuary jurisdictions” and suspending or terminating the money, according to the executive order.
If “sanctuary jurisdictions” are notified and the Trump administration determines that they “remain in defiance,” the attorney general and the secretary of Homeland Security are then empowered to pursue whatever “legal remedies and enforcement measures” they consider necessary to make them comply.
There’s no specific or legal definition of what constitutes a “sanctuary jurisdiction.” The term is often used to refer to law enforcement agencies, states or communities that don’t cooperate with immigration enforcement.
ICE enforces immigration laws nationwide, but often seeks state and local help in alerting federal authorities of immigrants wanted for deportation and holding that person until federal officers take custody.
One way that the administration seeks to enlist state and local support is through 287(g) agreements with local law enforcement agencies. Those agreements allow local law enforcement agencies to assume some immigration enforcement duties and greatly expand ICE’s capabilities. The number of those agreements has skyrocketed in just a matter of months under the Trump administration.
ICE has about 6,000 law enforcement officers — a number that has remained largely static for years — who are able to find, arrest and remove immigrants it is targeting. By relying on local law enforcement, it can quickly scale up the number of staff available to help carry out Trump’s mass deportations agenda.
Communities that don’t cooperate with ICE often say they do so because immigrants then feel safer coming forward if they’re a witness to or victim of a crime. And they argue that immigration enforcement is a federal task, and they need to focus their limited dollars on fighting crime.
“Sanctuary policies are legal and make us all safer,” said a coalition of local officials from across the country and a nonprofit called Public Rights Project in a statement Thursday. They said the list was a fear tactic designed to bully local governments into cooperating with ICE.
The Trump administration has already taken a number of steps targeting states and communities that don’t cooperate with ICE — and has met with pushback in the courts. One executive order issued by Trump directs the Attorney General and Homeland Security Secretary to withhold federal money from sanctuary jurisdictions. Another directs federal agencies to ensure that payments to state and local governments do not “abet so-called ‘sanctuary’ policies that seek to shield illegal aliens from deportation.”
Connecticut Public’s Chris Polansky contributed to this report.
