Back in April, Sarah Rodriguez, a spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said that their weekly Reports ordered by the Trump administration that were designed to shame sanctuary cities were temporarily suspended in order for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to make sure they were publishing the most accurate information. The Trump administration had only been publishing their weekly report for three weeks before they decided to stop it temporarily.
Vulnerabilities to Trump's agenda against sanctuary cities
Various efforts by the administration to go after sanctuary cities have been reported as well as reports that a growing number of states nationwide were looking to do the same, especially since the President's agenda appears to be stalled in Congress.
There are other reports of law enforcement taking a stand against the sanctuary city legislation for instance, in Texas. But it also appears that law enforcement also had something to do with why ICE stopped publishing weekly reports as they were apparently the ones who said they were full of errors.
The Trump administration has been very bold with putting out misinformation about every issue. Even with White House aides added to that misinformation, giving "alternative facts" when media outlets have employed or furiously developed their own fact-checking services to hold the administration accountable. The suspension of weekly reports from ICE that were apparently filled with misinformation suggests that the administration might not yet be fully invested in forcing their misinformation to discredit those cities as intended.
The pressure against/for ICE reports
One report by USA Today titled: "Errors prompt Trump to halt reports shaming 'sanctuary cities," said that President Trump ordered ICE to publish the reports through an executive order so that local agencies could be investigated by federal officials. Further, USA Today also points to a comment by Frank Sharry who is the executive director of America's Voice who said that the weekly reports "highlight" long standing accountability issues with ICE.
The executive order was signed on Jan. 25 when the administration was still new to the process.
The order also directed the Office of Management and Budget to find all funding they could withhold from sanctuary cities, which was one of the threats made by the Department of Justice and one of the legislative efforts President Trump tried to make which is stalled in Congress.
The misinformation specifically identified in the weekly reports were when they tried to go after certain counties claiming that those counties had rejected ICE detainer requests. These included Texas, North Carolina, Iowa, Pennsylvania and New York to name some. Judicial Watch claimed on June 7 that they filed a lawsuit against the DHS for denying the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) for those reports. Here is a clip of coverage from Fox News when they were invested in those reports before they were stopped.
