Since taking office, President Donald Trump has been determined to make our country safe again. To do so, his administration has been focusing on reducing illegal immigration and addressing violent crime.

For example, just recently, the Department of Justice (DOJ) stated that they will be working with a number of cities to help combat crime. Their plan is to focus heavily on the cities with the sharpest increases in violence.

Earlier this week, Attorney General (AG) Jeff Sessions announced the creation of a new program, the National Public Safety Partnership (PSP), to help address violent crime. “Turning back the recent troubling increase of violent crime in our country is a top priority of the Department of Justice and the Trump Administration, as we work to fulfill the President’s promise to make America safe again,” explained Sessions, adding, “the Department of Justice will work with American cities suffering from serious violent crime problems.”

According to him, the new program, which gives federal assistance to 12 different cities, “will help [the] communities build up their own capacity to fight crime by making use of data-driven, evidence-based strategies tailored to specific local concerns, and by drawing upon the expertise and resources of our Department.” The program will reportedly consist of “diagnostic teams” tasked with identifying crime-fighting strategies and “operations teams” tasked with training, coaching, and interagency cooperation.

The cities chosen to benefit from the program are Birmingham, Alabama; Indianapolis, Indiana; Memphis, Tennessee; Toledo, Ohio; Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Buffalo, New York; Cincinnati, Ohio; Houston, Texas; Jackson, Tennessee; Kansas City, Missouri; Lansing, Michigan, and Springfield, Illinois. In the future, however, more cities may be added to the list. Those listed will receive coordinated help from several branches of the Justice Department, including federal prosecutors in U.S. Attorney’s offices, agents from the FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration, and officials who oversee law-enforcement-focused grants.

While speaking to law enforcement officials about the new program at a summit in Bethesda, Maryland, Sessions justified the DOJ’s selective approach. “Our nation’s violent crime rate is rising. In many of our urban areas, this increase is staggering. Every American, no matter who they are, where they live, has the right to live in safe homes, in safe neighborhoods,” he reasoned .

“This spike in violent crime is not happening in every city in every neighborhood, but the trend is real and should concern all of us and it must not continue,” he continued, noting, “for many of our fellow citizens, this is literally a matter of life and death….Every American, no matter who they are, where they live, has the right to live in safe homes, in safe neighborhoods.”

In addition, Sessions spoke out against the former administration’s “dangerous catch and release policies” regarding illegal immigrants. While Obama was in office, countless criminal aliens were released back out into the streets instead of being deported. Fortunately, with Sessions and Trump in charge, this is not going to continue. He made it clear that anyone living in the country illegally who commits a crime will be deported back to their country of origin.

Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein also spoke at the summit in Maryland. During his speech, he focused on praising the police for putting their lives on the line. Specifically he said, “the Attorney General and I understand that every time you pull a vehicle over, execute a search warrant or step out in your uniform, you face a potentially fatal situation,” adding, “it gives us the utmost respect for the work that you do and the for the split-second decisions that you need to make.”

Under former President Barack Obama, the DOJ failed to properly address the massive amount of crime in our country. His administration spent too much time focusing on the alleged misdeeds of the police and not enough time helping enforce the law. Thankfully, we now have people in positions of power who support the police and understand what needs to be done to keep people safe.