Democratic attorneys general are preparing a series of legal actions to stop Donald Trump from carrying out mass deportations of undocumented immigrants, setting the stage for a series of showdowns over one of his key campaign promises.
In interviews with POLITICO, six top Democratic state prosecutors said they are preparing to take Trump to court over his misuse of military troops on home soil, attempting to rein in local or state law enforcement to do the government’s work. federal and denying people’s constitutional right to due process.
The attorneys general also said they would move to challenge Trump if he tries to federalize the National Guard, or if he tries to direct active-duty military units or National Guard troops from red states to blue states. They are preparing to fight his administration’s sending of immigration agents to schools and hospitals to target vulnerable populations.
And they are preparing to fight Trump for withholding federal funds from local law enforcement agencies in an attempt to induce them to carry out deportations, as he did unsuccessfully in his first term.
The lawyers’ preparations underscore deep concern among Democratic state leaders about Trump’s deportation plans and foreshadow the important role state prosecutors will continue to play in shaping the country’s immigration policy. After a series of challenges from Republican states to President Joe Biden’s immigration agenda over the past four years, it is now prosecutors in Democratic states who are in a position to unleash another round of legal confrontations, this time with the intention to hinder Trump on his emblematic issue.
“There are ways to (handle immigration) that are in line with American values and conform to American law. But they don’t seem interested in pursuing that,” New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez, a former federal prosecutor with experience in immigration enforcement, said of Trump and his allies. “And that’s where someone like me has an important role to play.”
MOVEMENTS AND COUNTERMOVEMENTS
While some have dismissed Trump’s promise to carry out the largest deportation in U.S. history as unworkable, Democratic attorneys general are taking the incoming president at his word. They are preparing reports and analyzes and even identifying courts in which to file their lawsuits as they prepare for him to begin mass arrests of undocumented immigrants, who number about 11 million.
He is setting up a legal chess match between a president-elect looking for new ways to push the limits of executive power and a group of state prosecutors who are already familiar with his playbook and are adapting to changes in his approach. And it is unfolding amid broader changes in border security policy.
The incoming president’s policy team is already thinking about how to craft executive actions aimed at resisting legal challenges from groups and state prosecutors, all in hopes of avoiding an early defeat like the one that lifted his 2017 travel ban targeting nations. Muslim majority.
But every step Trump takes during his transition — filling his Cabinet with immigration hardliners who have pledged to carry out his calls for large-scale deportations and confirming that he intends to declare a national emergency and use to the army in some way to help in their plans. – gives Democrats more clues about how to try to block his efforts once he takes office.
Trump promised during the election campaign to invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to expedite the removal of immigrant gang members. He is expected to end parole for people from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela, and disable a mobile phone app called CBP One that immigrants could use to schedule appointments to seek asylum.
His future border czar, former acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement Tom Homan, has promised step up workplace raids. His next deputy policy chief, Stephen Miller, has spoke of delegating the National Guard as immigration agents and even sending troops across state lines to circumvent any resistance efforts. While federal law largely prohibits the use of military forces to enforce the law in the country, Miller identified a solution last year – the clause in the so-called Insurrection Law that gives the president power to deploy the army on national soil in times of unrest.
And on Monday, Trump confirmed in a social media post that he intends to declare a national emergency and marshal military resources to help carry out the deportations.
State prosecutors argued in interviews that those plans are on shaky legal ground. And talk about using the military has already caused political divisions between the incoming president and Republican lawmakers, with libertarian Republican Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) saying this week that Trump’s plan to bring carrying out mass deportations with the help of the military It would be a “big mistake,” an early sign that Democrats might have some allies on this front.
“I don’t think the theories they have are consistent with federal law, so there would be a direct challenge to the legal basis that the president would use to deploy the United States military,” Torrez said.
“Separately and apart from the legal arguments that we would be making in court, I think there is a broader context in which the majority of Americans simply do not feel comfortable and do not support using military assets in that way,” Torrez added. .
WHERE TO REJECT… OR NOT
Attorneys general do not plan to stand in the way of legal enforcement of immigration law. In many cases they will work with federal authorities to address threats to public safety and help capture and deport criminals, as they have done in the past. And even as they prepare for what they see as possible overreach by a second Trump administration, they note that their next steps depend largely on how the president-elect implements his plans, which is difficult to predict.
Trump advisers have suggested that the Republican administration will take a more “targeted” approach to deportations, starting with those who are known or suspected threats to national security and who have criminal records. But attorneys general are skeptical he will stick to that. And they fear it could begin to target both undocumented immigrants who have been in the country for a decade or more and established roots, and those who entered the country through legal routes; scenarios that, they warn, could lead to family separation and cause chaos in some countries. communities.
“If he wants to achieve that kind of scale, the largest deportation in American history, as he says, by definition he’s going to have to target people who are here legally and… go after American citizens,” the Attorney General said. New Jersey, Matthew. Platkin said. “And we’re not going to allow that.”
Trump promised during his election campaign to begin his deportation campaign in Aurora, Colorado, the Denver suburb that he routinely described – despite rejection from locals – as a “war zone” that had been “invaded and conquered” by members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua. Phil Weiser, the state’s attorney general, said he will focus on determining whether Trump’s immigration officials are denying people due process, a move he called “un-American.”
Attorneys general from Colorado to California are also preparing to repeat battles over federal funding. Trump threatened during his first term to withhold funds from states and cities with so-called sanctuary policies that limit local law enforcement interactions with federal immigration authorities. His administration also tried to attach immigration enforcement conditions to local law enforcement grants, and lost in court.
“We’re not going to take this lying down, just like we didn’t last time,” said California Attorney General Rob Bonta.
In response to a request for comment for this article, Steven Cheung, Trump’s communications director, said in a statement that the president-elect has “nominated the most highly qualified and experienced attorneys to lead the Department of Justice” and “focus on enforce the law.” rule of law.”
The resistance from Democratic prosecutors will extend beyond the courtroom. Advocacy groups like the ACLU are already pushing attorneys general to use other tools at their disposal (such as issuing guidance to state and local agencies on how to handle immigration requests from the federal government) to try to slow implementation of the actions. Trump’s immigration policy.
And attorneys general are already embarking on a messaging campaign against Trump’s broad characterizations of immigrants as “bloodthirsty” criminals and in support of immigrants who contribute to local communities. They are also joining other Democratic leaders in beginning to cast Trump’s deportation plans as potentially harmful to the economy he has pledged to improve, drawing a direct line between the immigrant workforce that helps fuel the country’s agricultural industry and the highest prices in grocery stores.
Trump has created the narrative “that every immigrant who is here, say, in Massachusetts or in this country, is illegally committing crimes,” said state Attorney General Andrea Campbell. “It’s just not true.”
Shia Kapos and Josh Gerstein contributed to this report.