WASHINGTON — The Department of Justice today issued letters to 23 jurisdictions demanding the documents and threatening subpoenas over these localities’ supposed non-compliance with a federal law that addresses information sharing between local law enforcement and federal immigration authorities.

Lorella Praeli, director of immigration policy and campaigns at the American Civil Liberties Union, issued the following statement:

“This is just the latest in an escalating campaign by the Trump administration and Attorney General Jeff Sessions to accomplish through threats and scapegoating what they cannot through the courts. States and communities that have decided to limit their entanglement with Trump’s indiscriminate deportation agenda are on the right side of common sense, public safety, the Constitution, and all their residents — immigrant and citizen alike.

“The law is clear — as courts in California, Chicago, and Philadelphia have recognized, President Trump and Attorney General Sessions cannot force state and local governments to abandon their ongoing responsibilities to their residents and adherence to the Constitution in order to serve the nativist deportation agenda of this administration.”

A blog detailing President Trump and Attorney General Sessions’ efforts to institute anti-immigrant policies can be found here:

https://www.aclu.org/blog/immigrants-rights/trump-and-sessions-keep-trying-institute-anti-immigrant-policies