(AFP) – US President Donald Trump’s administration ramped up its immigration crackdown in Los Angeles on Monday, filing a lawsuit against its “sanctuary city” policies for undocumented migrants. The move comes three weeks after the Republican sent the National Guard to the Democratic-run California city to quell protests against roundups of migrants by federal agents.
California Governor Gavin Newsom has said the thousands of troops were not necessary to address the mostly peaceful protests, but his legal efforts to have them removed have failed so far. Los Angeles is one of a number of US “sanctuary cities” that prohibit local police from arresting people based on their immigration status and limit what information can be shared with federal authorities. That has brought it in direct confrontation with Trump, who assailed undocumented migrants on the campaign trail, likening them to “animals” and “monsters,” and promised to launch the biggest deportation drive in US history.
Under Trump, the Justice Department has sued Chicago and several other Democratic-run cities with sanctuary policies. In a statement, the department said it had filed suit against the city of Los Angeles, Mayor Karen Bass, and the Los Angeles City Council over policies that “interfere with the federal government’s enforcement of its immigration laws.” Attorney General Pam Bondi said sanctuary policies are “illegal under federal law” and contributed to the “recent lawlessness, rioting, looting, and vandalism” in the country’s second-largest city.
“Sanctuary policies were the driving cause of the violence, chaos, and attacks on law enforcement that Americans recently witnessed in Los Angeles,” Bondi alleged, a claim denied by the California authorities. US Attorney Bill Essayli said the lawsuit “holds the City of Los Angeles accountable for deliberately obstructing the enforcement of federal immigration law.”
“By assisting removable aliens in evading federal law enforcement, the City’s unlawful and discriminatory ordinance has contributed to a lawless and unsafe environment that this lawsuit will help end,” Essayli added. In the lawsuit filed in the US District Court for the Central District of California, the Justice Department said federal government efforts to address an immigration “crisis” were being “hindered by Sanctuary Cities such as the City of Los Angeles.”
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