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Washington, D.C., will not operate as a sanctuary city as long as the city’s police remain under federal control, according to border czar Tom Homan. Instead, police and Immigration and Customs Enforcement will work together.
“I think D.C. under federal control is not going to be a sanctuary city,” Homan said on Fox News Wednesday. “We’re working with the police hand-in-hand, and when we encounter criminal illegal aliens, they’ll be turned over to ICE.”
“I’m not saying every illegal alien in D.C. is a criminal, but many are,” Homan continued. “So these are the people we’re going to focus on. [The] illegal alien criminal safety threat in D.C. is not going to be protected. There’s no sanctuary for these people in the city of D.C.”
Homan’s comments follow President Donald Trump’s decision to federalize Washington’s police force and send the National Guard into the city in an effort to address violent crime in the nation’s capital.
Washington is one of multiple localities across the U.S. where local or state laws or policies restrict law enforcement from working with federal immigration agents.
“Sanctuary policies impede law enforcement and put American citizens at risk by design,” said Attorney General Pam Bondi in a statement last week.
Bondi has pledged to bring “litigation against sanctuary jurisdictions and work closely with the Department of Homeland Security to eradicate these harmful policies around the country.”
Under current law, the president is only permitted to federalize Washington’s police for 30 days, but Trump expressed interest during a press conference Wednesday in seeing this time limit changed.
“We’re going to need a crime bill that we’re going to be putting in, and it’s going to pertain initially to D.C.,” Trump said.
“It’s almost going to use it as a very positive example, and we’re going to be asking for extensions on that, long-term extensions, because you can’t have 30 days,” he continued. “Thirty days is, by the time you do it—we’re going to have this in good shape.”
Extending the 30-day limit would require a vote of Congress.
SOURCE: THE DAILY SIGNAL
