US justice department sues Minnesota over sanctuary city policies

The justice department has sued the state of Minnesota over its sanctuary city immigration policies, making it the latest locality to face legal threats as the Trump administration attempts to carry out the president’s campaign promise of mass deportations.

“Minnesota officials are jeopardizing the safety of their own citizens by allowing illegal aliens to circumvent the legal process,” Pamela Bondi, the attorney general, said in a statement.

The justice department added that Minnesota’s policies of refusing to cooperate with immigration authorities are illegal under federal law and have resulted in the release of so-called “dangerous criminals”. Immigrants with no criminal record are now the largest group in US immigration detention.

The Minnesota cities of Minneapolis, St Paul and Hennepin county join the ranks of Los Angeles, New York, Boston, and the states of New Jersey and Colorado: Democratic led jurisdictions which are facing similar lawsuits over their sanctuary city policies.

A Trump administration court filing in June – amid demonstrations against immigration raids – called Los Angeles’s sanctuary city ordinance “illegal” and asked that it be blocked from being enforced to allow the White House to crack down on what it calls a “crisis of illegal immigration”.

Over the summer, the justice department sent letters to 13 states it classified as “sanctuary jurisdictions”, including California and Rhode Island, and 22 local governments, from Boston to Seattle, informing their leaders that they could face prosecution or lose federal funding for “undermining” and “obstructing” federal immigration agents.

Last month, a federal judge blocked the Trump administration from cutting off federal funding to 34 “sanctuary cities” and counties, according to an executive order Donald Trump signed at the beginning of his second term.

Trump campaigned for the presidency on a promise of deporting millions of immigrants from the US. His administration has argued that sanctuary city laws, which limit a locality’s participation with federal immigration agents, violate federal law. Brett Shumate, an assistant attorney general at the justice department’s civil division, said in a statement that “shielding illegal aliens from federal law enforcement is a blatant violation of the law that carries dangerous consequences”.

Representatives from Minnesota’s governor and attorney general’s offices, the Hennepin sheriff’s office, and the mayors’ offices for St Paul and Minneapolis had not immediately responded to Reuters’ requests for comment.