The following is a quote from Lynn Tramonte, Deputy Director of America’s Voice Education Fund, responding to the appearance of Attorney General Jeff Sessions at today’s White House press briefing, and the administration’s new anti-immigrant scapegoating plan:
It’s painfully obvious that the Trump Administration wants to change the subject to anything other than its humiliating loss on healthcare reform. Of course, they turn back to their same, old anti-immigrant playbook. Jeff Sessions said nothing new today, but he’s trying to move the media narrative to what the Trump Administration believes to be more favorable ground for them – scapegoating and maligning immigrants.
The fact that the DOJ wants to take public safety money away from certain jurisdictions shows that the goal here is not protecting the public, it’s political gamesmanship. The same was true during Take 1 and Take 2 of the refugee and Muslim ban.
Communities that refuse to participate in Trump’s Deportation Force do so for good reason: they are focused on crime solving and protecting all residents. So called “sanctuary” jurisdictions have lower crime rates than others, in no small part due to the trust between local law enforcement and the entire community.
Retaliation against state and local officials by agents of the Trump Administration – be it DOJ or ICE – puts politics over public safety and local control. We may expect to see these tactics employed in an authoritarian state with weak democratic institutions, not the United States of America.
