{"id":96857,"date":"2017-10-19T03:00:42","date_gmt":"2017-10-19T03:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/sessions-tangles-with-durbin-over-chicago-violence.html"},"modified":"2017-10-19T03:00:42","modified_gmt":"2017-10-19T03:00:42","slug":"sessions-tangles-with-durbin-over-chicago-violence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/political\/sessions-tangles-with-durbin-over-chicago-violence.html","title":{"rendered":"Sessions tangles with Durbin over Chicago violence"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t
\n\t \"Democratic<\/a><\/p>\n

Durbin spars with Sessions over response to Chicago violence<\/a><\/h4>\n

Democratic senator from Illinois presses the attorney general over federal funds and role illegal immigrants play in Chicago’s murder rate.<\/p>\n

Attorney General Jeff Sessions sparred with Sen. Dick Durbin Wednesday over Chicago\u2019s murder rate — and the prospect of federal funding potentially being cut amid the city\u2019s resistance to the Trump administration\u2019s immigration policies.<\/p>\n

Sessions testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on a slew of issues, including law enforcement and immigration policy. Well before the hearing, Sessions has repeatedly threatened to cut federal funding for so-called \u2018sanctuary cities\u2019 that do not cooperate with federal immigration agents.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Durbin, D-Ill., pressed Sessions over his desire to \u201ccut burn grant funds,\u201d which he suggested would \u201champer community policing and undermine work\u201d to cut the murder rate in Chicago.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re not helping us solve the murder problem in the city of Chicago by taking away these federal funds,\u201d Durbin said, noting that 3,000 people have been injured by guns, and over 500 have been killed in the past year in Chicago. \u201cThe superintendent said your pursuit of undocumented immigrants has little or nothing to do with gun violence in Chicago.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sessions responded that the \u201cmurder rate is a cloud over the city,\u201d and agreed that community policing was \u201cabsolutely essential\u201d to the Chicago Police Department, but pushed back on Durbin\u2019s claim that the murder rate has nothing to do with illegal immigrants.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think politicians cannot say if you remove a violent criminal from America, if he is arrested and put in a Chicago jail, that once they\u2019re out, they shouldn\u2019t be turned over to federal ICE officers so they can be removed from the country\u2014they were here illegally to begin with, much less committed a crime,\u201d Sessions said.<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cHow does that make the city of Chicago safer when you don\u2019t remove criminals who are illegally in this country?\u201d<\/p>\n

Durbin fired back, slamming Sessions on his opening statement and his alleged double-edged praise of law enforcement.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t give an opening statement throwing a bouquet to local police and then ignore what the superintendent of police in Chicago tells you has nothing to do with gun violence,\u201d Durbin said. \u201cYou want to cut off federal funds to that city and come here and criticize the murder rate and have it both ways.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sessions countered that he had increased the number of \u201cATF agents by 12,\u201d noting that was \u201ca large number\u201d and \u201cmore than any other city.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe United States government cannot take over law enforcement for the city of Chicago,\u201d Sessions said. \u201cWe\u2019re not doing it for New York, not doing it for a lot of other places.\u201d<\/p>\n

Durbin interrupted, \u201cNor can the city of Chicago take over immigration.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sessions closed the back and forth, promising the Justice Department would \u201ccontinue to work\u201d with Chicago.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do not want to not have grants go to Chicago, but we need their support,\u201d Sessions said. \u201cWhen somebody is arrested in the jail that\u2019s due to be deported, we just simply ask that they call us so we can come by and pick them up if they need to be removed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sessions added: \u201cThat\u2019s not happening and we\u2019ve got to work through it in some way.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Brooke Singman is a Politics Reporter for Fox News. Follow her on Twitter at @brookefoxnews<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Article source: http:\/\/feeds.foxnews.com\/~r\/foxnews\/politics\/~3\/DXxq2YFolfQ\/sessions-tangles-with-durbin-over-chicago-violence.html<\/a>\r\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Durbin spars with Sessions over response to Chicago violence Democratic senator from Illinois presses the attorney general over federal funds and role illegal immigrants play in Chicago’s murder rate. Attorney General Jeff Sessions sparred with Sen. Dick Durbin Wednesday over Chicago\u2019s murder rate — and the prospect of federal funding potentially being cut amid the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[84],"class_list":["post-96857","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-political","tag-political"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96857","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=96857"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96857\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usa.timesofnews.com\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}