Nolan writes:
“On May 11, 2017, Attorney General Jeff Sessions made an appearance before Customs and Border Protection officers at the U.S.-Mexico border to announce the issuance of new guidance to federal prosecutors on criminal immigration enforcement.
It is here, along this border, he said, that transnational gangs like MS-13and international cartels flood our country with drugs. They leave death and violence in their wake. “And it is here that criminal aliens and the coyotes and the document forgers seek to overthrow our system of lawful immigration.”
“I am here to tell you, the brave men and women of Customs and Border Protection: we hear you and we have your back.”
The president has made enforcement of our immigration laws a priority, and we are seeing the results already. Illegal crossings dropped by 40 percent from January to February of this year, and last month, we saw a 72 percent drop compared to the month before the president was inaugurated. This is the lowest monthly figure in the last 17 years.
It is “the Trump era.” The days of abdicating our duty to enforce the immigration laws are over.
. . . .
Sanctuary cities ‘harboring‘ aliens: Trump’s next immigration target?
The harboring provision provides criminal penalties for concealing, harboring, or shielding aliens from detection knowing that they are in the United States illegally.
Harboring that results in the death of any person, may “be punished by death or imprisoned for any term of years or for life.”
The harboring provision does not specify what actions constitute “harboring,” and the courts have not settled on one uniform definition.
According to the Second Circuit, it encompasses “conduct tending substantially to facilitate an alien’s ‘remaining in the United States illegally,’ provided that the person charged has knowledge of the immigrant’s unlawful status.”
Isn’t that what officials in sanctuary cities are doing when they take affirmative steps to help undocumented aliens to remain in the United States unlawfully? “
**********************************************
Read Nolan’s entire article over on The Hill at the link.
I’m skeptical that anything “sanctuary cities” are doing could be prosecuted as “harboring.”
PWS
05-16-17
I don’t know whether the Trump Administration will prosecute government officials for harboring, but I think some of the things they are doing make a harboring charge feasible.
It’s not harboring for a police department to refuse to share information or cooperate in any other way with immigration enforcement actions. The problem comes when the police are ordered not to share information with ICE or to cooperate in any other way, or the government officials involved take affirmative steps to make it easier for undocumented aliens to remain here.
And, as I said in my article, we are in the “Trump era.” No way to predict what Trump will do if state and local governments continue to take affirmative steps to make immigration enforcement more difficult.
Thanks for the clarification, Nolan. Both of us have to find better things to be doing @ 2 AM!
Best,
Paul
I agree.
And I’m still up at 5 am because Nolan’s assertion that the Feds can stretch the definition of “harboring” in 8 USC § 1324(a)(3).to prosecute sanctuary cities is absolute legal nonsense. Warning. Here comes legalese:
A criminal conviction requires “scienter”, see Ernst and Ernst v. Hochfelder, 425 U.S. 185 (1976). How can you presume “scienter” when the local government is acting within its primary role as the jailer? And the Tenth Amendment of the US Constitution will probably preclude stretching that “harboring” definition also.
He also ignores the text of the case he links. UNITED STATES v. LOPEZ 521 F.2d 437 (1975) where the criminal violation involved hiding in several houses aliens here illegally and charging each $15 a week to hide there from the feds. See http://www.leagle.com/decis… See also United States v. Wulff, 758 F.2d 1121 (1985), the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals found that the felony provision of the migratory bird treaty Act, 16 U.S.C.A. § 703 et seq., was unconstitutional because it made the sale of part of a migratory bird a felony without proof of scienter. It violates the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution unless the penalty is relatively small.
We must all be insomniacs, Gus! But, engaging is good for our aging brains!!
Cheers,
P😎