Attorney General Pam Bondi rescinded several DC police executive orders Thursday that restricted officers from arresting illegal migrants – vowing that the nation’s capital will not be a sanctuary jurisdiction under President Trump.
“DC will not remain a sanctuary city. Actively shielding criminal aliens will not happen,” Bondi declared in an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity.
The attorney general’s comments came as she issued a new directive voiding commands issued – as recently as earlier Thursday – by DC Metropolitan Police Department Chief Pamela Smith.
Smith’s latest order had directed DC cops to only assist Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) taking part in Trump’s sweeping city crime crackdown by transporting migrants apprehended by ICE and sharing information about individuals detained during traffic stops.
The same order barred DC police from using law enforcement databases “solely for the purpose of inquiring about an individual’s immigration status” and making arrests “based solely on federal immigration warrants or detainers.”
DC police were also restricted from letting ICE know when jailed illegal migrants would be released, sharing photographs of them, allowing ICE to question them and holding them in custody at the request of federal immigration agents.
“They’re trying to protect criminal aliens,” Bondi said of DC officials, arguing that “criminals are going to flee to DC” if the city remains a safe haven for illegal migrants.
“We’re not going to let that happen,” she pledged.
Bondi’s directive also named Drug Enforcement Agency Administrator Terry Cole MPD’s “Emergency Police Commissioner for the duration of the emergency declared by the President.”
Cole will “assume all of the powers and duties vested” in the DC chief of police and have the authority to issue any commands to cops while the MPD’s 3,400-member police force remains under federal control.
Existing MPD leadership, including Smith, must receive approval from Cole before issuing any further directives to officers, according to Bondi’s order.
“They report directly to me,” Bondi said of Cole and US Marshal Chief Gadyaces Serralta, who is supervising the federal takeover of DC. “And I report to the president of the United States.”
“So, yes, you must comply. You must give the information to our ICE, to our Homeland Security officers,” she said of DC police.
“If they have information of an illegal alien living in DC, they must give us that information.”
Democratic DC Mayor Muriel Bowser released a legal opinion from the district’s attorney general, Brian Schwalb, late Thursday night, arguing that Bondi’s directive is “unlawful.”
“It is my opinion that the Bondi Order is unlawful, and that you are not legally obligated to follow it,” Schwalb wrote in a memo addressed to Smith, citing the Home Rule Act of 1973, which allowed the district limited self-governance.
The act, according to the district’s AG, “does not authorize the President, or his delegee, to remove or replace the Chief of Police; to alter the chain of command within MPD; to demand services directly from you, MPD, or anyone other than the Mayor; to rescind or suspend MPD orders or directives; or to set the general enforcement priorities of MPD or otherwise determine how the District pursues purely local law enforcement.”
“[M]embers of MPD must continue to follow your orders and not the orders of any official not appointed by the Mayor,” Schwalb continued. “Regardless of the Bondi Order, no official other than you may exercise all the powers and duties of the Chief of Police or issue any executive orders, general orders, or other written directives that apply to members of MPD.”
Since the Trump administration ordered federal law enforcement to hit the DC streets Aug. 7 to tackle crime and filth, authorities have arrested more than 150 people on charges including homicide and drug and weapons violations.
Another 60 arrestees are suspected of being in the US illegally, and authorities have also seized 27 firearms thus far.
