An order telling Chicago police not to respond to requests from federal homeland security officials without a supervisor present is another way people on the left are politicizing the long-standing relationship between local and federal law enforcement officials, acting Citizenship and Immigration Director Ken Cuccinelli said Monday.
"If you look back in history, you can't find many times when state, local and federal law enforcement didn't work together and by that I mean put politics aside of whoever their leadership was to simply enforce the law and to protect one another," Cuccinelli told Fox Business' Maria Bartiromo. "They would never admit it but they are trying to put federal law enforcement officers at risk. They are trying to make their job harder."
Fox News reported Monday that according to a memo it received, the Chicago Police Department has advised its officers against cooperating with the Department of Homeland Security, especially when it comes to arresting immigrants, without waiting for a supervisor.
The police confirmed the memo was from an internal superior but would not say if it came from Mayor Lori Lightfoot.
"It's a really sad additional step" for sanctuary cities like Chicago to take that action, Cuccinelli said. "People like the mayor of Chicago are willing to sacrifice their own people to violent crime in order to make a political point."
Meanwhile, immigration numbers have come down a great deal because of the president's partnerships with places like Mexico, Guatemala, Cuccinelli agreed, noting that an agreement has also been reached with Honduras.
"It's important because Honduras was the last of the northern triangle, plus Mexico, to be entering into the agreements with the United States," he said. "Last week, with the signing of a number of agreements with Honduras was a great step forward in regionally addressing illegal immigration… (It) will now be sharing in real-time law enforcement data so they can enforce their borders when people are crossing into Honduras and we get their information as well."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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