Attorney General Pam Bondi has barely been in office for a week but has already sent a clear and welcome message that the Justice Department is under new management.
On Wednesday, Bondi announced she had filed a lawsuit against the state of New York, Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-NY), and New York Attorney General Letitia James for what she said was prioritizing “illegal aliens over American citizens.”
The lawsuit targets a number of New York laws that have inhibited immigration enforcement. There’s the Green Light Law, which grants driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants and prohibits federal law enforcement, including immigration enforcement, from accessing the state’s driver’s license information. There’s also a law that requires state officials to inform illegal immigrants if federal officials inquire about them, among other things.
“This is a new DOJ,” Bondi said at a press conference announcing the lawsuit. “New York has chosen to prioritize illegal aliens over American citizens. It stops. It stops today.”
Bondi’s flashy press conference and headline-grabbing lawsuit show there’s a new sheriff in town. The Justice Department has a zero-tolerance policy for states that defy the rule of law and endanger the public by allowing criminal illegal immigrants to roam free.
After four years of the Merrick Garland DOJ’s aggressive targeting of law-abiding citizens, Bondi is a breath of fresh air. Rather than suing Texas for protecting its citizens from illegal immigrants, prosecuting peaceful protesters who prayed outside of abortion clinics, or sending the FBI to investigate parents who spoke out at school board meetings and Catholics who attend the Latin Mass, Bondi’s first major legal action as attorney general is an effort to force the state of New York to comply with existing federal immigration law.
The new attorney general, who personally removed the photographs of former President Joe Biden, former Vice President Kamala Harris, and former Attorney General Merrick Garland at the DOJ this week, has pledged to wipe away the legacy of her predecessors on a number of fronts. Bondi has vowed to restore the independence of the DOJ following the Biden administration’s frequent use of the department as a political tool.
And perhaps most refreshingly, Bondi has pledged to focus the department on its core mission of keeping people safe and prosecuting criminals.
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“My overriding objective will be to return the Department of Justice to its core mission of keeping Americans safe and vigorously prosecuting criminals, and that includes getting back to basics: gangs, drugs, terrorist cartels, our border, and our foreign adversaries,” Bondi said during her confirmation hearing.
Her lawsuit against New York is a great start to fulfilling these promises.