Face the Facts: How President Trump's deportation efforts could impact CT

Within hours of taking office, President Trump signed executive orders to start a massive deportation effort.

Immigration agents fanned out all across the country this week, looking for criminals who are in our country illegally, and Trump is also trying to compel local police departments to help.

Should they? And do they have to?

NBC Connecticut's Mike Hydeck spoke with Rep. Greg Howard, who's a police officer and an EMT by trade, in addition to being in our state government.

Mike Hydeck: This week, we had confirmed reports of immigration officers in several cities, including Bridgeport, East Hartford, among them. President Trump's goal is to try to get immigrants who are criminals rounded up. Has the effort been effective in your mind, both in communication to the general public and execution of the first couple of days?

Greg Howard: Well, it seems like he's achieving his goal. And I think that that's an important distinction. So immigration is a federal operation. It's not a law that is enforced by our state or local law enforcement, the State of Connecticut or any state for that matter. It's a federal operation. It's not something I'm intimately involved in because I serve in the state legislature. But it seems that he is achieving his goals, according to press releases that I've seen.

Mike Hydeck: So now there was an initial push, albeit, words on paper, basically in the news conferences, they were going to try to compel New Haven's police department to go in and help ICE agents do their job. And New Haven is a sanctuary city, is one of them. Should that happen? Is that legal in your mind? I guess they can try to compel, but I don't think they can make can they?

Greg Howard: No, I don't think they can. There's a court case on that that they cannot compel law enforcement, the State of Connecticut to carry out their jobs, right? And in addition to that, we have a police force in Connecticut that is at critical levels of recruitment and retention. And if you look at the numbers right now, the Uniform Crime Report, we used to solve cases in the state 22 to 24% up until 2020. The solve rate's down to 15 to 17%. Meanwhile, on our highways, traffic stops are significantly low and we have fatal crashes. I think our law enforcement this state needs to be focused on enforcing the state laws. The issue becomes, what is happening in Connecticut, is we have a law called the Trust Act, which not only prohibits the law enforcement in this state from carrying out those duties, but actually requires law enforcement in the state of Connecticut to interfere with ICE, and that's where the problems start to come in.

Mike Hydeck: Right, and so have we seen that yet, to your knowledge, either in years past or in this most recent effort?

Greg Howard: Not to my knowledge. The big concern came out Mike, because the Department of Justice released a memo that said that federal prosecutors are going to investigate and prosecute any official, that would include law enforcement officers, the Attorney General, prosecutors, et cetera, who interfere with ICE in their operation of carrying out their role of enforcing immigration laws. I think that that's one of the things that has put police officers in this state in a very precarious situation. Because if you arrest somebody today for, say, murder, and they're on a detainer, and ICE says, I want to come in and interview them, and you say, we're not letting you in, according to that DOJ memo, they're going to investigate you for that, but if you let them in, you're in violation of state law. So it's a question.

Mike Hydeck: That goes right down Main Street, a separation of federal and states' rights, basically, is what I'm trying to say.

Greg Howard: Well, I think it does when you talk about in the context of having law enforcement do that job, but the cooperation is something that happens all of the time. You know, for example, I serve in a district that's on a state line with Rhode Island. if you have a string of burglaries, say, in North Stonington, and then that suspect gets caught in Rhode Island, those two states will cooperate and share information for their shared goal of prosecuting the laws that they're responsible for in their own states. Whether the FBI or the DEA or ICE is coming to Connecticut, having our local law enforcement who are already in the performance of their own duties, withholding information or getting in the way of cooperation, is a whole different aspect, and I don't think that that quite gets to states' rights, not forcing law enforcement to do their job does, but getting in their way, I think, is a different question.

Mike Hydeck: So the Trump administration also sent a note to our state DOT, implying a list of things like losing federal funding if we don't cooperate with these immigration efforts. Does that feel like a threat?

Greg Howard: It does. And you know, I said that about federal funding for years. You know, we talk about that in education as well, and certainly here. You know, if we have 50 sovereign states and yet the federal government can withhold funding if you don't comply with what they want, you're not a sovereign state anymore. You're a hostage. And we see that in education. We're seeing that here, and I do think that for the federal government to tell the state legislature if you don't do what we say we're going to hold funding, does speak to state's rights, and that I have an issue with for sure.

Mike Hydeck: So in sanctuary cities around the country, churches and schools were off limits for ICE agents. Now the president puts out a memo saying they're not off limits anymore. Can you just wipe that away? Are we back at a loggerhead between state and federal again?

Greg Howard: So there again, you know, I'm not an attorney, but I do think you are, because you're again, there's a difference between making state officials do federal jobs and getting in the way of federal agents trying to do their jobs. Because if every state official in 50 states can interfere with everything that the federal government's doing, then where can they operate? If they can't operate in their own 50 states, where can they operate? And the answer is nowhere. So we can't have that, right? So I think it comes back to that same thing. There's defining, the delineation between not having our law enforcement in Connecticut do their job, but I also think it's irresponsible to proactively interfere with them doing their job.

Mike Hydeck: And adding another job when we're so understaffed statewide, it would be incredibly impossible.