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Synopsis
President Trump signed executive orders targeting sanctuary cities, aiming to enforce immigration laws and punish uncooperative jurisdictions. These orders include publishing a list of sanctuary cities, providing legal resources to police, and ensuring English proficiency for truck drivers. The administration seeks to increase deportations and criticizes cities obstructing federal immigration enforcement, sparking legal challenges and accusation.
President Donald Trump signed three more executive orders 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 immigrants lacking legal status. 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," Trump's order states, "should be a non-negotiable safety requirement for professional drivers."
One of the orders also could hinder 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 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.
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 sued the city of Rochester, New York, 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 Evans, and City Council president, Miguel Meléndez, released a joint statement Friday criticizing the lawsuit.
"On its face, the complaint is an exercise in political theater, not legal practice," the statement said. "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."
