The Justice Department is looking to play a stronger role in President Donald Trump's immigration enforcement, The Washington Post is reporting.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions is already expanding a program to deport undocumented immigrants convicted of crimes after they serve prison sentences, the newspaper noted.
"We owe it to the American people to ensure that illegal aliens who have been convicted of crimes and are serving time in our federal prisons are expeditiously removed from our country as the law requires," Sessions said.
Along with other moves, Sessions also backed an Immigration and Customs Enforcement report listing cities failing to comply with immigration orders, and he threatened to withhold federal law enforcement grants if those cities fail to cooperate.
Sessions has credited the Trump administration's enhanced enforcement of policies for a 60 percent decrease in the number of illegal immigrants caught by Customs and Border Protection in February, the Washington Examiner noted.
"That's the way to solve this problem," he said. "If we stay at it, we can create a lawful system of immigration, one that admits 1.1 million people lawfully right now — every year," Sessions added.
But Sessions' moves have sparked concern among some city leaders and immigration rights advocates, who fear his hardline ideology, the Post reported.
"I think we want clarity over who's running immigration policy," Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said. "DOJ can give some opinions, but it's not primarily in their jurisdiction,"
Meanwhile, Sessions is considering making a trip to Nogales, Ariz.in mid-April. The Post described Nogales as a "busy border crossing region that features a major patrol station and already has miles of fencing and walls designed to keep out illegal immigrants from Mexico."
The trip would come when President Trump is asking Congress for billions of dollars to begin building a longer wall on the U.S-Mexico border, the newspaper noted.
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