President Donald Trump and U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions just send liberals a powerful message: Law and order is coming back to the United States!
Trump is taking the fight over the nation’s immigration policy directly to California by suing to block state laws that protect illegal immigrants from the law — and history shows he has a good chance of winning.
Sessions is expected to speak to law enforcement officials in the state’s capital Wednesday, just hours after the U.S. Justice Department filed the lawsuit — the most aggressive move yet in the Trump administration’s push to force so-called sanctuary cities and states to cooperate with immigration authorities.
The U.S. Justice Department is challenging three California laws that bar police from cooperating with federal immigration enforcement activities. The suit filed in federal court in Sacramento says the laws are unconstitutional and have kept federal agents from doing their jobs.
“The Department of Justice and the Trump administration are going to fight these unjust, unfair and unconstitutional policies that have been imposed on you,” Sessions said in prepared remarks. “I believe that we are going to win.”
California liberals remained defiant, with Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown mimicking Trump on Twitter —
At a time of unprecedented political turmoil, Jeff Sessions has come to California to further divide and polarize America. Jeff, these political stunts may be the norm in Washington, but they don’t work here. SAD!!!
— Jerry Brown (@JerryBrownGov) March 7, 2018
Brown is named in the lawsuit along with Democratic Attorney General Xavier Becerra.
The lawsuit is the latest salvo in an escalating feud between the Trump administration and California, which defiantly refuses to enforce federal laws and deport criminal illegal aliens. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has said it will increase its presence in California, and Sessions wants to cut off funding to jurisdictions that won’t cooperate.
“I say: Bring it on,” said California Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de Leon, a Los Angeles Democrat who wrote the sanctuary state bill.
The lawsuit was filed as the Justice Department also reviews Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf’s decision to warn of an immigration sweep in advance, which ICE said allowed hundreds of criminal illegals immigrants to escape justice.
The California laws were passed in response to Trump’s promises to sharply ramp up the deportation of illegal immigrants.
One prohibits employers from letting immigration agents enter worksites or view employee files without a subpoena or warrant, an effort to prevent workplace raids. Another stops local governments from contracting with for-profit companies and ICE to hold immigrants. Justice Department officials said that violates the Constitution’s supremacy clause, which renders invalid state laws that conflict with federal ones.
The Supreme Court reinforced the federal government’s primacy in enforcing immigration law when former President Barack Obama blocked much of Arizona’s tough 2010 immigration law on similar grounds. The high court found several key provisions undermined federal immigration law, though it upheld a provision requiring officers, while enforcing other laws, to question the immigration status of people suspected of being in the country illegally.
In this case, California “has chosen to purposefully contradict the will and responsibility of Congress to protect our homeland,” Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said in a statement.
Sessions, who has blamed sanctuary city policies for crime and gang violence, is set to speak Wednesday to groups representing police chiefs, sheriffs, district attorneys, narcotics investigators and the California Highway Patrol.
The Associated Press contributed to this article