The Department of Justice on July 17 requested data on incarcerated illegal immigrants from sheriffs in multiple major California counties, including reasons for arrests or convictions and scheduled release dates.
The Justice Department said in a statement that it was requesting the information to help federal immigration authorities in fast-tracking the deportation of illegal immigrants who committed crimes after entering the United States.
The sheriff’s departments affected include Los Angeles and San Francisco counties.
“Removing criminal illegal aliens is this administration’s highest priority,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement.
“I look forward to cooperating with California’s county sheriffs to accomplish our shared duty of keeping Californians and all Americans safe and secure.”
The release states that although every illegal immigrant “by definition violates federal law,” those who go on to commit crimes after entering the country unlawfully “show that they pose a heightened risk” to the United States’ safety and security.
The Justice Department said it hopes the California sheriffs will voluntarily produce the requested information, which includes the inmates’ crimes of arrest or conviction and their scheduled release dates.
“But if necessary, the department will pursue all available means of obtaining the data, including through subpoenas or other compulsory process,” the agency added.
In a statement to The Epoch Times, the California attorney general’s office said President Donald Trump and the Justice Department “cannot bully ... local law enforcement into breaking the law.”
“The California Values Act—or SB 54—ensures that our limited state and local resources are focused on public safety, not immigration enforcement, and promotes vital community trust in local law enforcement,” the office said.
That law allows county jails to transfer inmates into the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) if agents present a criminal arrest warrant for a violation of a federal criminal immigration law.
“[It does not] allow for the wholesale notification to DOJ of individuals housed in county jails, regardless of whether or not they have even been found guilty of a crime,” the office said. “We will review this directive and monitor its implementation for compliance with the law.”
The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, which is the largest sheriff’s agency in the country, did not respond to a request for comment by publication time.
The Justice Department’s move on July 17 adds to the Trump administration’s existing battles with California over immigration enforcement and its state and local sanctuary laws.
The nation’s top law enforcement agency is currently suing Los Angeles over its sanctuary policy, and ICE agents have made thousands of arrests in the area in line with Trump’s agenda of mass deportations.
On July 13, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said that ICE agents detained 361 illegal immigrants and encountered 14 unaccompanied minors during a July 10 operation on two marijuana farms in Southern California.
After a federal judge recently ordered a temporary halt to federal immigration enforcement in the seven-county Central District of California, which includes Los Angeles, the Trump administration asked an appeals court on July 14 to resume operations immediately without restrictions.
The judge’s ruling ordered the Department of Homeland Security to stop detaining individuals based on race, spoken language or accent, job, or presence at certain locations, including bus stops.
Jill McLaughlin contributed to this report.
