Mijente: Trump Push to Draft Sheriffs as Immigration Agents Circumvents Constitution

By:
Aug 21, 2017
11:04 PM

In response to a New York Times article outlining plans to conscript Sheriffs deeper into federal immigration enforcement, Jacinta Gonzalez, field director for Mijente, released the following statement:

What we are seeing from Trump, ICE, and the Department of Justice is the result of what happens when someone who defends white supremacists gets put in charge of policy. It incentivizes profiling and leads to the mass jailing of immigrants.

The Trump White House cannot loophole its way around the fourth amendment.The attempt by the Trump administration and a set of anti-immigrant Sheriffs to circumvent the constitution should be put to a halt immediately.

What the White House is proposing creates a constitutional crisis and a litigation nightmare for any law enforcement that participates. With ICE going off the rails, Congress should defund the agency and local officials should stand up to refuse any part of the political police force that Trump is putting in motion.

Also notable in the article is a report that ICE is seeking detainers on 11,000 people per month, a reported 78% increase. Read more on ICE under Trump in today’s op-ed in The Hill, “Congress Must Probe Trump’s Immigration Enforcement.

More on Sheriffs reactions to the proposal can be found in this Daily Beast article, “Trump Wants Us to Break the Law.

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