Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel is demanding that his city’s “sanctuary” for illegal immigrants to be paid for with your tax dollars — and he’s suing the U.S. government to get his way.
Emanuel has taken his fight against President Donald Trump’s immigration policies to court, with Chicago becoming one of the first cities Monday to sue the government over threats to withhold public safety grants from so-called sanctuary cities.
Legal experts say the lawsuit will cost taxpayers millions before the dust settles.
The 46-page lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in Chicago, a day after Emanuel announced the litigation and said the city won’t “be blackmailed” into changing its values as a liberal city.
A first order of business now that the suit has been filed will be to ask a judge to put a freeze on the policy at least until the civil case plays out, said Edward Siskel, the head of City Hall’s legal department. That request for a preliminary injunction could be made within days.
Chicago officials say there are new qualifications for a grant that requires cities to share information with U.S. immigration authorities. Chicago has received the grant funds since 2005, including $2.3 million last year. They were used for buying police vehicles, radios and SWAT equipment.
Trump wants them to use these funds to also enforce federal laws in their jurisdiction — including cooperating with our nation’s immigration law.
It is the latest round in a battle between several major U.S. cities that refuse to obey the federal government efforts to enforce immigration law and the Trump administration, with federal officials threatening for months to withhold funding for sanctuary cities, saying they don’t comply with federal laws.
Last month, Attorney General Jeff Sessions said local governments would lose the money if they do not give advance notice when criminal immigrants in the country illegally are about to be released from custody. He also wants immigration agents to have access to local jails. He has argued that the policy makes everyone safer.
Chicago has been a sanctuary city since the 1980s, beefing up its policies in the past decade, particularly since Trump took office.
The city prohibits police from providing federal Immigration and Customs officials access to people in police custody, unless they are wanted on a criminal warrant or have serious criminal convictions. Local police are also barred from allowing ICE agents to use their facilities for interviews or investigations and from responding to ICE inquiries or talking to ICE officials about a person’s custody status or release date.
The lawsuit, which names Sessions, seeks to remove the illegal immigration-related conditions for the grant applications.
“It’s especially tragic that the mayor is less concerned with that staggering figure than he is spending time and taxpayer money protecting criminal aliens and putting Chicago’s law enforcement at greater risk,” said Department of Justice spokesman Ian D. Prior in an email.
In March, the Justice Department sent letters to officials in California and major cities including New York, Chicago, Philadelphia and New Orleans, all places the Justice Department’s inspector general has identified as limiting the information local law enforcement can provide to federal immigration authorities about those in their custody.
The department warned that the administration will punish communities that hinder efforts to find and deport criminal immigrants in the country illegally.
The Associated Press contributed to this article