Washington, D.C. — Last night, President Donald Trump signed two executive orders that threaten public safety in communities across the nation and single out state and local leaders for doing their jobs to keep their communities safe. These actions also make it harder for law enforcement officers to gain the trust of the communities they serve. In response, Rachael Eisenberg, managing director of Rights and Justice at the Center for American Progress, issued the following statement:
The Trump administration is yet again threatening state and local leaders for doing the job their constituents elected them to do: to protect public safety in their communities. Trump falsely accuses city and state officials in sanctuary jurisdictions of a sweeping range of legal violations, but the fact is his actions targeting those communities are ones that the courts have found to be unlawful.
Community trust is essential to police’s ability to solve crime and prevent it from happening in the first place. Trump’s threat to withhold resources from tens of millions of Americans endangers us all. These orders could erode the few safeguards that exist to hold police officers accountable when they break the law and hurt people. If the Trump administration really cared about stopping crime, it would restore the more than 350 grants his Department of Justice terminated to violence prevention, victim services, and other programs that are working every day to make our communities safe places to live and work.
For more information or to speak with an expert, please contact Rafael Medina at [email protected].