The executive order President Trump signed yesterday pertaining to border security and immigration contains a provision requiring the Department of Homeland Security to publish a weekly list of crimes committed by illegal aliens and “sanctuary” jurisdictions that fail to act upon them.

This won’t be controversial at all. </sarcasm>

To better inform the public regarding the public safety threats associated with sanctuary jurisdictions, the Secretary shall utilize the Declined Detainer Outcome Report or its equivalent and, on a weekly basis, make public a comprehensive list of criminal actions committed by aliens and any jurisdiction that ignored or otherwise failed to honor any detainers with respect to such aliens.”

Mayors of sanctuary cities are defiantly promising not to cooperate with federal authorities attempting to enforce immigration laws.

The Republican responded by saying he would starve such cities of federal funding, and has now signed this into law via a second executive order, signed on the same day and titled ‘Enhancing Public Safety in the Interior of the United States’. However, some experts have suggested such a move could be illegal. US law says federal funds can only be withheld if a city or state refuses to do something directly related to the funding they are receiving.

That the article only refers to “some experts” tells me not to take that claim at face value, but I don’t know the legalities. That’s one for the lawyers to sort out. While they’re at it I’d like to know how no one gets criminally prosecuted—or at least investigated—for openly refusing to enforce the law. What would happen if a mayor said his city was no longer going to enforce or abide by EPA regulations? Or OSHA regulations? I think it’s reasonable to say that someone would be in trouble.

If his first week in office is any indication, this list will likely result in more histrionics from the left and innumerable trips down innumerable rabbit holes as the media examines the minutiae of each line item’s immigration status, circumstances of the crime, or questions whether DHS is identifying the correct jurisdictions. Already some online commenters are equating it with Nazi policies toward Jews and the mainstream press won’t make any effort to dissuade them.

There is little reason to expect that the Trump administration won’t get baited into arguing and tweeting about insignificant details as a result of this list. When you’re arguing for enforcing immigration laws, the data on such a list is necessary for building your case, but maybe it would have been better if it had been simply delegated to DHS Secretary so that it didn’t draw the White House into another unnecessary firefight.