The Trump administration is reviewing San Diego County and organizations awarded federal grants to shelter migrants, suggesting they may have violated human smuggling laws and requesting information on all migrants served through the grant.
The Department of Homeland Security has “significant concerns” the recipients of the grant “may be guilty of encouraging or inducing an alien to come to, enter, or reside in the United States” in violation of federal criminal law, said Cameron Hamilton, acting administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, in a letter sent to a county official on March 11.
In the letter, obtained by inewsource, Hamilton cited parts of United States Code Section 1324, which is commonly used to prosecute human smugglers and carries a potential sentence of years in prison for encouraging someone to illegally enter the U.S., transporting or harboring them.
The letter could foreshadow increasing legal challenges from the Trump administration against groups that sheltered or cared for recently arrived migrants in the U.S. In Trump’s first term, authorities charged humanitarian aid workers who provided food and water to migrants in the desert along the border with smuggling related crimes.
The letter also raises concerns that the migrants served through the FEMA grant could be on the shortlist for Trump’s mass deportation plan.
Hamilton asked that the county respond within 30 days with the names, contact information and any other documents on migrants served through the grant funding and a “descriptive list of specific services provided.”
FEMA, which administered the grant along with Customs and Border Protection, will monitor grant recipients and withhold payments. Leaders of agencies and organizations that received that grant must now sign an affidavit saying they don’t have knowledge or suspicion of violating federal smuggling laws.
Similar letters were sent to recipients of the grant across the country, according to news reports. Catholic Charities Diocese of San Diego, the largest local recipient of the grant, also confirmed receiving a letter. The third local grantee, Jewish Family Service of San Diego, did not respond to an inquiry into whether it received the letter.
Read the full article at inewsource.org
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