The Trump administration is looking to expand the definition of the phrase “sanctuary city,” according to the president’s more than 1,200-page budget proposal, and make it easier to withold federal funding from these local governments.
The revision in President Trump’s budget proposal comes on the heels of a final guidance issued by Attorney General Jeff Sessions defining what constitutes a sanctuary city, a popular description of jurisdictions that don’t help the federal government enforce immigration laws.
In the Trump budget proposal, Section 1373 would be expanded to require communicating to the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security information related to the “nationality, citizenship, immigration status, removability, scheduled release date and time, home address, work address, or contact information, or any individual in custody or suspected of a violation of” federal immigration law.
As presently written, Section 1373 only requires state and local jurisdictions not to limit communications with DHS about people’s citizenship or immigration status.
The budget would also require that any detainer request by DHS must be complied with to avoid violating Section 1373. Sessions or Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly could withold funds from departments that violate this provision.
“The Secretary of Homeland Security or the Attorney General may condition a grant or cooperative agreement awarded by the Department of Homeland Security or the Department of Justice to a State or political subdivision of a state, for a purpose related to immigration, national security, law enforcement, or preventing, preparing for, protecting against or responding to acts of terrorism,” the budget proposal reads.
Currently, a detainer from Immigration and Customs Enforcement is a written request that a local jail or other law enforcement agency detain a person for an additional two days after their release date so ICE agents can have extra time to figure out if the person should be deported.
However, these requests are now voluntary and often not fulfilled by sanctuary cities and counties. The budget request would make it easier for the federal government to block funds to such jurisdictions.
In a memo issued Monday, Sessions said he and Kelly decided a sanctuary jurisdiction will refer “only to jurisdictions that ‘willfully refuse to comply with 8 U.S.C. 1373.'”
Sessions conceded in his memo that the definition of a sanctuary city would then become “narrow,” but left the door open for other ways to withhold both Justice Department and DHS grants to jurisdictions not in compliance with Section 1373.
Congress will ultimately approve the spending levels for the next fiscal year. Lawmakers in both parties have said the Trump budget proposal will not pass intact.
