Philly DA Larry Krasner says he won’t break the law for Trump’s immigration crackdown
"My office is a law enforcement entity. We are going to follow the Constitution and uphold the law," Krasner said as Trump officials threatened consequences for uncooperative local officials.
Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner said that his office would not comply with any immigration orders from President Donald Trump’s administration that might cause his staff to break the law — and that his stance would not be swayed by a Justice Department memo threatening consequences, including potential criminal charges, for local officials who do not cooperate with Trump’s planned immigration crackdown.
Krasner, a Democrat who is expected to run for reelection this year and who has long been critical of Trump, made the comments in an interview Wednesday, not long after the Justice Department memo, written by Acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove, was published by a variety of news outlets.
The DA also spoke as officials in Mayor Cherelle L. Parker’s administration testified before City Council and said they were reviewing executive actions signed by the newly inaugurated Republican president. City Solicitor Renee Garcia said that Philadelphia’s status as a sanctuary city remained in place, and that officials would continue with a variety of practices regarding how and when agencies interact with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, including complying with federal requests to detain immigrants who have been arrested only if such requests are accompanied by a warrant.
In the Trump administration’s memo, Bove wrote that local officials are legally bound to cooperate with the Justice Department under the Constitution’s supremacy clause, and he urged federal prosecutors to investigate any instances in which local agencies or employees might be “resisting, obstructing, and otherwise failing to comply with lawful immigration-related commands.”
“Indeed,” Bove wrote, “it is the responsibility of the Justice Department to defend the Constitution, and accordingly, to lawfully execute the policies that the American people elected President Trump to implement.”
As potential avenues for prosecution, the memo cites a conspiracy offense as well as a law prohibiting the harboring of people in the country illegally.
Krasner said it was beyond dispute that public officials “must comply with constitutionally supported laws requiring certain conduct.” But he said he was doubtful that the memo was truly seeking to make that point.
Instead, he said, it sounded as if the Justice Department’s new leadership was “trying to normalize the notion that President Trump has authority he doesn’t have — that his preferences, his wishes, his frankly fascist agenda is something he can enforce local officials to follow even when there is no legal authority empowering him to make them do so.”
“There are public officials all over the country who are rightly concerned that his actions around immigration are not only immoral, they may also stray into areas that are illegal,” Krasner said. The DA declined to specify which illegal actions Trump might seek to impose on local officials, saying only: “With him, [it could be] anything.”
He also declined to say what type of request from immigration authorities his office might disregard. But he said: “My office is a law enforcement entity. We are going to follow the Constitution and uphold the law. We are under no obligation to do things that are illegal … or simply on Donald Trump’s fascist wish list, where he has no authority to compel our conduct.”
Krasner is in the final year of his second term in office and has never been shy about criticizing Trump. Just last fall, he sued Elon Musk, one of Trump’s top campaign surrogates, and accused him of running an illegal lottery by giving money away to potential Trump voters (a judge rejected Krasner’s arguments).
Krasner also seemed to relish rhetorical battles with Trump during his first term, and in 2021, when Krasner faced a bitter reelection battle, he frequently sought to associate his opponent in the Democratic primary, Carlos Vega, with Trump.
It remained unclear Wednesday just how often Krasner’s office might interact with ICE agents in Trump’s new term, even if the agency seeks to conduct more immigration raids in the city.
Krasner’s office has several lawyers dedicated to handling cases involving immigrants — including, in some instances, by seeking to protect immigrants accused of nonviolent crimes from being deported — and that could attract attention from Trump’s Justice Department. Bove said in his memo that federal officials would identify local laws or policies across the country that are “inconsistent with [Trump’s] immigration initiatives, and, where appropriate … take legal action.”
Krasner said having attorneys dedicated to interacting with immigrants, particularly those who may be witnesses or victims, was helpful in a variety of ways, including by getting people to show up to court. In any case, he said, he wasn’t sure what to make of the memo’s warnings about local policies.
“The truth is almost everything they’re doing seems to be a footrace between evil and incompetence,” Krasner said. “It’s not even comprehensible.”