DoJ says it will prosecute officials who resist Trump’s immigration crackdown

The US justice department is ordering federal prosecutors to target state and local officials who resist the administration’s planned mass deportation campaign, marking a dramatic escalation in Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown just days after taking office.

The acting deputy attorney general, Emil Bove, directed prosecutors nationwide, in a document obtained by the Washington Post and the Associated Press, to investigate and potentially bring criminal charges against officials in “sanctuary” jurisdictions for “harboring” undocumented immigrants or withholding immigration information from federal authorities.

“Federal law prohibits state and local actors from resisting, obstructing, and otherwise failing to comply with lawful immigration-related commands,” wrote Bove, a former Trump defense attorney who represented him in recent criminal proceedings.

Emil Bove looks on as Donald Trump appears remotely for a sentencing hearing in New York on 10 January 2025. Photograph: Angela Weiss/Reuters

The justice department created a “sanctuary cities enforcement working group” to identify local laws blocking Trump’s immigration agenda, while ordering its civil division to challenge these policies in court, according to the memorandum. Any refusal to prosecute cases involving “resistance, obstruction or other noncompliance” must now be reported as “urgent” to department leadership.

“Federal law prohibits state and local actors from resisting, obstructing, and otherwise failing to comply with lawful immigration-related commands,” the document read.

This new and aggressive stance sets up an immediate clash with Democratic-led cities like Chicago, which recently reaffirmed its limits on cooperating with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice). While some sanctuary jurisdictions work with Ice to transfer serious criminals from prisons, others argue that broader deportations destabilize communities and deter immigrants from reporting crimes.

The directive follows Trump’s promise to launch “the largest domestic deportation operation in American history”, backed by executive orders mobilizing agencies across the federal government, including the defense department, for immigration enforcement. Trump has also vowed to send over a hundred law enforcement officers to Chicago.

The justice department directive comes amid a broader series of planned immigration actions. Trump officials outlined to reporters earlier this week a slate of executive orders, including an attempt to end birthright citizenship for children of immigrants and asylum seekers – a move that would challenge longstanding constitutional interpretations and probably face supreme court review.

This marks a sharp reversal from Joe Biden’s unsuccessful push for Congress to provide a path to citizenship for some of the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States. Trump’s new orders could now make all of them targets for removal.