President Trump signed three more executive orders on Monday, including one targeting local jurisdictions that the administration says are not cooperating with its aggressive immigration crackdown.
One order directs Pam Bondi, the attorney general, and Kristi Noem, the secretary of homeland security, to publish a list of state and local jurisdictions that the Trump administration considers “sanctuary cities,” meaning they limit or refuse to cooperate with federal officials’ efforts to arrest undocumented immigrants. It calls for pursuing “all necessary legal remedies and enforcement measures” against jurisdictions that continue to oppose the administration’s immigration crackdown.
A second order instructs the Trump administration to provide legal resources to police officers accused of wrongdoing; review and attempt to modify existing restraints on law enforcement, such as federal consent decrees; provide military equipment to local law enforcement; and use enforcement measures against local officials who “unlawfully prohibiting law enforcement officers from carrying out duties.”
Earlier in the day, Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said the order would “unleash America’s law enforcement to pursue criminals.”
A third executive order seeks to enforce existing rules requiring professional truck drivers to be proficient in English. The order requires the Transportation Department to place any driver who cannot speak and read English “out of service.”
“Proficiency in English,” Mr. Trump’s order states, “should be a non-negotiable safety requirement for professional drivers.”
One of the orders also could hinder undocumented immigrants from getting in-state tuition for higher education. It directed federal agencies to stop the enforcement of state and local laws “that provide in-state higher education tuition to aliens but not to out-of-state American citizens.”
The orders represent Mr. Trump’s latest salvo against so-called sanctuary cities. As the president attempts to increase the pace of deportations, his administration has grown increasingly frustrated that some jurisdictions will not hold migrants in jail beyond their release dates to make it easier for federal officials to detain them.
Mr. Trump’s immigration crackdown has prompted significant outcry.
“Let’s be clear: Trump continues to position his anti-immigrant agenda at the very center of his action,” said Hector Sanchez Barba, the president of Mi Familia Vota, a pro-immigration advocacy organization. “Trump’s inhumane attacks on law-abiding, tax-paying immigrants are both morally repugnant and deeply unpopular with the American people. We know this because in just four months, Trump has reached historically low levels of unpopularity with voters.”
The Trump administration has already sued the city of Rochester, N.Y., accusing officials there of illegally impeding immigration enforcement. And the Justice Department is prosecuting a Milwaukee judge on charges of obstructing immigration agents.
Rochester’s mayor, Malik D. Evans, and City Council president, Miguel Meléndez, released a joint statement on Friday criticizing the lawsuit.
“On its face, the complaint is an exercise in political theater, not legal practice,” the statement said, adding, “The City of Rochester is committed to investing its resources on public safety for all, not doing the federal government’s work of immigration enforcement.”
Meanwhile, a federal judge in San Francisco temporarily blocked the government from enforcing part of an executive order directing agencies to withhold funds from cities and counties that do not cooperate with federal immigration enforcement.
“It’s quite simple,” Ms. Leavitt said Monday. “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.”
The executive orders were signed a day before Mr. Trump celebrates the 100th day of his second term. The White House has scheduled a week of events promoting his actions so far, beginning with his immigration crackdown.
The White House lawn was lined Monday morning with mug shot-style posters of undocumented migrants who were arrested and accused of committing crimes.
In his first term, Mr. Trump targeted so-called sanctuary cities by threatening to withhold federal funding from mayors and governors who did not comply with his anti-immigration agenda. The administration has ramped up pressure on the jurisdictions just three months into Mr. Trump’s second term, using bellicose language to describe the tension with Democratic leaders.
Stephen Miller, White House deputy chief of staff, said Democratic governors and mayors were waging a “war” against federal law enforcement.
“They don’t recognize the supremacy of federal law enforcement to protect the lives and livelihoods of American citizens against a foreign nation,” Mr. Miller said.
Mr. Miller said those Democratic-led cities were allowing “illegal aliens to go free and rape and murder.”
Even before Mr. Trump signed the new executive orders on Monday, the Department of Homeland Security said it was reviewing billions of dollars in grants for cities and states to make sure recipients complied with Mr. Trump’s priorities on immigration enforcement and other domestic policies.
For Mr. Trump’s immigration advisers, the sanctuary city policies are one of the primary hurdles standing in their way of making good on Mr. Trump’s campaign pledge to record the most deportations in U.S. history. The label of “sanctuary jurisdiction” applies broadly to cities and counties that block their local jails from cooperating with federal immigration officials.
The federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, prefers to pick up undocumented immigrants from local jails, rather than from their homes, workplaces or out in public. In order to do so, it needs collaboration from local officials, like county sheriffs. In some cities and counties, this collaboration is outright blocked or severely limited.
At a morning news conference, Tom Homan, the Trump administration’s border czar, said the administration had carried out 139,000 deportations. That figure lags behind the pace of the final year of the Biden administration, which seemed to annoy Mr. Homan.
He said the number would be higher but, because border crossings had fallen so significantly, there were fewer people to turn back.
“Am I happy with that? The numbers are good,” he said, adding: “I read the media, ‘Oh, ICE deportations are behind Biden administration.’ Well, why? Because they counted border removals.”
Mr. Homan said the administration would, as of Tuesday, begin to enforce its plan to make undocumented immigrants ages 14 and older register and provide their fingerprints to the U.S. government or potentially face criminal prosecution.
