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Republican Congressman Trey Gowdy, of South Carolina, is not a fan of the Obama Justice Department's sanctuary city policies.
"Time and time again, our nation has witnessed the tragic consequences of this administration's failure to enforce immigration law," he said in his opening statement at a hearing on sanctuary cities Tuesday. "Witnessing these tragedies is unsettling enough, but it pales in comparison to the grief and the anguish and the separation experienced by the families of those victimized."
At issue was a provision that was enacted by Congress two decades ago: Title 8, Section 1373, was "designed specifically to prevent jurisdictions from enacting policies that prohibit their employees from sharing information with ICE about illegally present or criminal aliens."
"We're not here merely to discuss the failure to enforce the law," Gowdy explained in his opening remarks. "It's even more disconcerting than that. We're here today because the Department of Justice, the entity that is supposed to be the chief enforcer of the law, is aiding and abetting local governments in their failure to enforce the law."