President Donald Trump's administration has directed U.S. prosecutors to criminally investigate state and local officials who attempt to resist its immigration enforcement efforts, according to a memo to Justice Department staff seen by Reuters.
"Federal law prohibits state and local actors from resisting, obstructing or otherwise failing to comply with lawful immigration-related commands and requests," reads the memo, authored by Emil Bove, the acting deputy attorney general, a Trump appointee who most recently served on Trump's legal defense team.
The memo, dated on Tuesday and made public on Wednesday, signals an aggressive stance on Trump's hardline immigration policies by the Justice Department and raises the prospect of criminal charges for those who may interfere.
It said that state and local officials who resist or obstruct immigration enforcement could be charged under federal laws barring defrauding the United States or harboring immigrants who are in the United States unlawfully.
If prosecutors opt not to bring criminal charges following such investigations, they would be required to alert Justice Department leadership, according to the memo.
The Republican president in his first day in office declared illegal immigration a national emergency, tasking the U.S. military with aiding border security, issuing a broad ban on asylum and taking steps to restrict citizenship for children born on American soil.
The memo also reinstated a policy dating back to Trump's first administration under former Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
"Prosecutors should charge and pursue the most serious, readily provable offenses," it said. "The most serious offenses are those punishable by death ... and offenses with the most significant mandatory minimum sentences."
Tuesday's memo came a day after the Trump administration abruptly fired four of the department's senior career immigration officials from the Executive Office of Immigration Review - the office that runs the immigration courts, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.
Those removed included the office's former director Mary Cheng and Chief Immigration Judge Sheila McNulty, who was previously listed as a target on a so-called "bureaucrat watch list" operated by the conservative American Accountability Foundation, the sources said.
Bove told Justice Department employees in Tuesday's memo that the new directive is a way to enforce the flurry of executive orders Trump signed on illegal immigration on his first day office.
In addition to his orders on immigration, Trump also directed the Justice Department to resume the use of the federal death penalty and instructed the attorney general to seek capital punishment against illegal immigrants who commit a capital offense.
Bove cited threats posed by international gangs and drug cartels. In a separate executive order, Trump designated certain cartels to be "foreign terrorist organizations."
"It is the responsibility of the Justice Department to defend the Constitution and, accordingly, to lawfully executive the policies that the American people elected President Trump to implement," the memo states.
