AG Barr: ICE can defy courtroom sanctuary policies in the states
Washington Times, Nov 22, 2019

Attorney General William P. Barr pleaded with the chief justices in Oregon and Washington on Thursday not to adopt sanctuary policies for their courthouses, saying the states are already releasing enough dangerous illegal immigrant criminals onto their streets without adding more to the tally.

Mr. Barr, in a stern letter, pointed to several recent cases out of the Seattle area where gang-connected illegal immigrants stand accused of vicious murders, including one where a popular high school teen was pummeled to death with a bat then chopped to pieces with a machete.

And he warned that ICE officers and Border Patrol agents are free to make arrests in public areas of courthouses, suggesting the two states’ attempts to expand their sanctuary policies to cover courtrooms will have limited effect.

“Under the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution, such rules cannot and will not govern the conduct of federal officers acting pursuant to duly enacted laws passed by Congress,” he said in the letter, which was also signed by acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad F. Wolf.

Their letter is the latest salvo in an ongoing battle between the Trump administration, which wants to more strictly enforce immigration laws, and anti-Trump local officials who want to defy that enforcement by announcing safe spaces where they won’t let U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement do its job


More: https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/201...sanctuary-poli/