The new chief of the U.S. Border Patrol has drawn a line at handing over illegal immigrant criminals to sanctuary cities that won’t promise to return them after their local court cases are completed.

Rodney Scott, who was named chief in January, said that even those wanted for murder won’t be handed over if they won’t be returned to federal officials to be deported.

Referring to California, an illegal immigrant sanctuary state, he said that Border Patrol will deport an illegal immigrant if there is an outstanding warrant for arrest should the state refuse to return them.

“My job is to protect the United States and to secure the borders, not to get prosecutions, so we are deporting people that have active warrants because the state will not give back that person to us, and we have to pick: federal law or state law,” he said in a recent briefing.

And it doesn’t matter what the alleged crime is. “It doesn’t really matter the charge,” he said. “If they will not give confirmation that they are going to return the individual,” said Scott, “then we are not going to turn them over. We’ll prosecute them federally, then deport them.”