Trump ramps up criminal charges against migrants in California

By Alicia A Caldwell and Myles Miller Bloomberg The Trump administration is filing criminal charges against more immigrants in the US illegally as part of an effort to skirt state and city policies that limit local cooperation The effort is starting in California where prosecutors are tracking everyone booked into state and local jails in a seven-county region They re looking for foreigners who have been previously deported in order to charge them with a felony for re-entering the US without permission revealed Bill Essayli the US Attorney for the Central District of California which includes Los Angeles Related Articles Opinion Californians insist that immigrants deserve a path to citizenship Man facing deportation charged with assaulting ICE officer in San Jose Largest part AAPI adults oppose college funding cuts and trainee deportations a new poll finds After moving across the perimeter for better schools specific parents are pulling their kids and leaving the US US immigration executives appear to have begun deporting settlers to South Sudan attorneys say Under Operation Guardian Angel federal prosecutors have filed about criminal arrest warrants for foreigners arrested on state or local charges in the area since January compared with about during all of and Essayli explained in a interview Being a foreigner in the US without permission isn t a crime per se but those caught overcoming the demarcation illegally can be charged with a misdemeanor or felony if they ve been caught and deported before Anyone caught in the interior of the country after being deported can also be charged with a felony We re going to file on anyone and everyone who qualifies under the statute Essayli announced We ve got the materials and the administration has made it clear materials will not be an issue for immigration-enforcement operations The warrants supplant previously relied-on detainer requests sent to local jails asking officials to hold someone on civil immigration charges Multiple jurisdictions around the US have in modern years stopped responding to those requests arguing that local and state bureaucrats have no authority to enforce the administrative immigration notices California has statewide policies that generally bar local bureaucrats from honoring those detainer requests The new warrants Essayli commented will ensure that foreigners in local jails will be turned over to federal officers to face accusations that they came back to the US without permission Zero Tolerance Successive administrations from both parties have routinely filed misdemeanor and felony charges for refugees caught at the limit During the first Trump administration the Justice Department launched a zero-tolerance strategy and pledged to prosecute nearly every adult caught transiting the demarcation illegally expanding a initiative launched by former President George W Bush and used in one section along the Texas demarcation The mass-prosecution effort which included the administration s controversial family-separation framework was short lived and fast overwhelmed federal courts along the margin Since then prosecutors have returned to generally charging those with criminal histories and those previously expelled Essayli described his California judicial district as a testing ground for the focus on criminal charges and explained federal agents want to expand the effort to other so-called sanctuary cities and states Our primary goal is to keep the populace safe that s one of ruling body s largest part sacred responsibilities Essayli disclosed The administration has made it clear we re getting back to basics targeting violent organized crime transnational criminal organizations and fraudsters who victimize innocent people More stories like this are available on bloomberg com Bloomberg L P