After Rahm sues feds, A.G. Jeff Sessions blisters ‘lawless’ Chicago 
 
 Mayor Rahm Emanuel, with Police Supt. Eddie Johnson (left) and U.S. Rep. Danny Davis (right) announces a federal lawsuit challenging the Justice Department's threats to withhold federal funding from sanctuary cities and states. | Nader Issa/Sun-Times 
 
 Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Monday blasted the “political leadership of Chicago” and “the culture of lawlessness that has beset the city” just hours after Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s administration sued Sessions to bar him from cutting federal crimefighting funds to sanctuary cities. 
 
 Rather than take a hands-off approach to the now-pending litigation, Sessions stepped up attacks on Chicago, the city that has been repeatedly bashed by President Donald Trump because of its ongoing problems with controlling crime. 
 
 “To a degree perhaps unsurpassed by any other jurisdiction, the political leadership of Chicago has chosen deliberately and intentionally to adopt a policy that obstructs this country’s lawful immigration system,” Sessions said in a prepared statement. “They have demonstrated an open hostility to enforcing laws designed to protect law enforcement — federal, state, and local — and reduce crime, and instead have adopted an official policy of protecting criminal aliens who prey on their own residents. 
 
 “This is astounding given the unprecedented violent crime surge in Chicago, with the number of murders in 2016 surpassing both New York and Los Angeles combined. The city’s leaders cannot follow some laws and ignore others and reasonably expect this horrific situation to improve. 
 
 “The mayor complains that the federal government’s focus on enforcing the law would require a ‘reordering of law enforcement practice in Chicago.’ But that’s just what Chicago needs: a recommitment to the rule of law and to policies that roll back the culture of lawlessness that has beset the city.” 
 
 Though the Trump administration has attempted to link sanctuary-city status to the city’s crime problem, the Chicago Sun-Times has reported that illegal immigrants have played no role in the overwhelming majority of the murders that have put the city in the national spotlight. 
 
 “I have been a police officer for more than 30 years, and the federal government’s plans will hamper community policing and public safety,” Chicago Police Supt. Eddie Johnson said in response to Sessions. “Undocumented immigrants are not driving violence in Chicago, and that’s why I want our officers focused on community policing and not trying to be the immigration police.” 
 
 With the filing of the lawsuit against Sessions, Chicago becomes the fourth city to wage a legal battle against the Trump administration bid to cut the crimefighting grants to sanctuary local governments. 
 
 Other lawsuits to block the Justice Department from punishing cities shielding illegal immigrants from federal immigration agents have been filed in federal courts in Seattle, and in California: Santa Clara and San Francisco. 
 
 And while each has its own unique facts and circumstances, Chicago’s legal team is tapped in to the loose network of lawyers that has formed for many of these sanctuary cities. 
 
 “We are in regular contact with lawyers in cities and counties around the country related to these issues,” city Corporation Counsel Ed Siskel said – including from New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, New Orleans and Philadelphia. 
 
 Chicago’s 46-page complaint asks U.S. District Judge Harry Leinenweber — assigned to the case Monday — to stop the Justice Department from enforcing new conditions it has attached to the grant funds. 
 
 The city appears to be making a solid legal case, according to two experts from the University of Chicago Law School: Professor Aziz Huq and Assistant Professor Daniel Hemel. Both pointed out that, according to the city’s lawsuit, Congress did not give the Justice Department the power to create new conditions when it created the grant program. 
 
 The Justice Department in recent days detailed the new rule and conditions sanctuary jurisdictions must follow. The first condition would require the city to give the feds, when they ask for it, a 48-hour heads up of the scheduled release date and time “of an alien in the jurisdiction’s custody.” 
 
 The second would require the city to give the feds access to “any correctional or detention facility in order to meet with an alien . . . and inquire as to his or her right to be or remain in the United States.” However, the city points out in its lawsuit that Chicago does not have a jail — only 18 temporary police “lockup” facilities. 
 
 The city claims the Justice Department is also asking it to again certify its compliance with a federal law barring local governments from not sharing immigration status information with the feds. It is asking to the city to do so “under the cloud of confusion” created by the new grant conditions, the city is alleging. ||||| Attorney General Jeff Sessions' combative statement, which accused Chicago officials of adopting "an official policy of protecting criminal aliens," is likely to be well received by President Donald Trump. | Andrew Harnik/AP Sessions blasts Rahm Emanuel over sanctuary suit 
 
 Attorney General Jeff Sessions lashed out at Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Monday, delivering an unusually caustic reaction to a new lawsuit challenging the Trump administration's plans to crack down on so-called sanctuary cities. 
 
 Emanuel announced the filing of the suit earlier in the day, complaining about a new Justice Department policy attempting to cut off grants to police departments that decline to cooperate with federal immigration officials. 
 
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 Sessions' barbed reply argued that record numbers of murders in Chicago in recent years were attributable at least in part to Emanuel's decision to stick with a sanctuary policy that encourages police to ignore the immigration status of those they encounter. 
 
 "No amount of federal taxpayer dollars will help a city that refuses to help its own residents," Sessions said. "To a degree perhaps unsurpassed by any other jurisdiction, the political leadership of Chicago has chosen deliberately and intentionally to adopt a policy that obstructs this country’s lawful immigration system." 
 
 The attorney general's combative statement, which accused Chicago officials of adopting "an official policy of protecting criminal aliens," is likely to be well received by President Donald Trump. He has regularly blasted Chicago over crime, accusing it of being too lax in its response to the surge in violence there. 
 
 Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson pushed back against the attorney general's portrayal. 
 
 "Undocumented immigrants are not driving violence in Chicago, and that's why I want our officers focused on community policing and not trying to be the immigration police," he said. 
 
 He also said that "the federal government's plans will hamper community policing and public safety." 
 
 Sessions' statement comes amid what appears to be his concerted effort to curry favor with Trump after the president made a series of comments last month expressing dissatisfaction with Sessions and said he regretted picking him as attorney general. 
 
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 "This is astounding given the unprecedented violent crime surge in Chicago, with the number of murders in 2016 surpassing both New York and Los Angeles combined," Sessions said. "The city’s leaders cannot follow some laws and ignore others and reasonably expect this horrific situation to improve." 
 
 “This administration will not simply give away grant dollars to city governments that proudly violate the rule of law and protect criminal aliens at the expense of public safety," Sessions added. "So it’s this simple: Comply with the law or forgo taxpayer dollars." 
 
 However, the new lawsuit argues it's the Justice Department that isn't complying with the law. No law obliges local governments to actively assist immigration officers or to notify them when illegal immigrants are released from jail. 
 
 The Trump administration is trying to add such requirements to certain law-enforcement grants issued in the future, but Chicago's suit contends that Justice Department officials lack the authority to add anti-sanctuary-city requirements beyond a single provision barring grant recipients from policies that punish officers for contacting federal officials about a suspected undocumented immigrant. 
 
 Other cities are considering similar lawsuits. Indeed, localities in California and Massachusetts have filed legal challenges to an early Trump executive order that many saw as threatening a broad crackdown on sanctuary cities. Emanuel and many law enforcement leaders argue that the policies benefit public safety by encouraging undocumented immigrants to cooperate and communicate with police. 
 
 “Chicago is a welcoming city and always will be, and we will not be blackmailed by President Trump's Justice Department," Emanuel said as he announced the suit. "Forcing us to choose between our values and our police department’s philosophy of community policing is a false choice, and it is a choice that would ultimately undermine our public safety agenda." ||||| Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Monday won praise from some representatives of Chicago's immigrant community for going to court to block President Donald Trump's Department of Justice from withholding some police grant funding from so-called sanctuary cities. 
 
 Some of those same activists, though, contend Emanuel should do even more to prevent police from helping federal officials deport Chicago immigrants who entered the country without the required legal documentation. The mayor also caught more flak from U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who in stepping up his rhetoric said "no amount of federal taxpayer dollars will help a city that refuses to help its own residents." 
 
 The wide array of views coming from Emanuel's City Hall, the White House and immigrant protection groups is a sign of the complex debate the mayor has entered by filing the lawsuit. It's all further complicated by differing views on whether sanctuary city status fosters or hinders crime — as reflected in Sessions' harsh words and the city's contention that the Trump "administration's rhetoric is divorced from reality." 
 
 Emanuel's lawsuit, filed Monday in federal court, asks a judge to block the Trump administration from enforcing three new conditions it included last week in applications for Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant money. The city uses the grant to help buy police cars, purchase other equipment and fund an anti-violence program. Those applications are due Sept. 5, and the city wants a court order before the deadline, said Corporation Counsel Ed Siskel, the city's top attorney. 
 
 The new conditions outlined by Sessions' Justice Department: sharing immigration status information with federal officials enforcing deportation laws, providing unlimited police station access to those officials and giving them 48-hours notice of an arrested person's release in cases of potential immigration violations. 
 
 City officials contend in the lawsuit that they do share immigration status information when they have it, but that's rare because the city doesn't keep it in the normal course of business. 
 
 Providing unfettered station access would interfere with police department practices, delay release of people being held and violate the 10th Amendment by "commandeering" local government functions, the lawsuit states. And holding people for 48 hours without a warrant or probable cause that they have committed a crime would violate 4th Amendment search and seizure limitations, it adds. 
 
 The suit also contends that the Justice Department has no authority to set conditions on the Byrne grant funding and is attempting to usurp the Congressional power of the purse. In short, the suit deems the conditions "unlawful and unconstitutional." 
 
 This year, the city was counting on receiving $3.2 million from the grants in question, a relatively miniscule portion of the city's overall $9.8 billion budget. 
 
 "We are at a time when every bit counts and every resource matters in this fight," Siskel said. "In addition, we are bringing this legal challenge because the rhetoric and the threats from this administration, embodied in these new restrictions placed on public safety grant funds, are breeding a culture and a climate of fear within the communities in our city." 
 
 City corporation counsel Ed Siskel talks at Dirksen Federal Building about the Emanuel administration lawsuit against the Donald Trump Justice Department about sanctuary city rules. Aug. 7, 2017 (John Byrne / Chicago Tribune) City corporation counsel Ed Siskel talks at Dirksen Federal Building about the Emanuel administration lawsuit against the Donald Trump Justice Department about sanctuary city rules. Aug. 7, 2017 (John Byrne / Chicago Tribune) SEE MORE VIDEOS 
 
 Plus, the fate of Chicago's grant application also would affect other local Illinois governments that include their funding requests in Chicago's application, according to the lawsuit. They are Cook County, Bellwood, Calumet City, Chicago Heights, Cicero, Dolton, Evanston, Harvey, Maywood, Riverdale and Skokie. 
 
 And the outcome of the suit could have ramifications for far-flung local and state governments with sanctuary laws on the books. They include New York, Philadelphia, Miami and the state of California. 
 
 So it was no surprise that groups like Illinois Coalition for Immigration and Refugee Rights backed the mayor's move. "We are all for defending Chicago's policy with respect to immigration," said Fred Tsao, the group's senior policy counsel. He also said "the law is on the side of the city." 
 
 Yet Tsao's group is part of a broader coalition that for months has been pushing Emanuel to remove four exemptions from the city's Welcoming City Ordinance, which sets its status as a sanctuary city. 
 
 That ordinance bars police from providing federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials access to people in local custody. It also prohibits allowing ICE agents to use police facilities for interviews or investigations, and bars on-duty officers from responding to ICE questions or talking to ICE officials prior to a person's release from custody. 
 
 But it does allow police to provide ICE officials access to immigrants suspected of entering the country illegally who are wanted on a criminal warrant, face criminal charges, have serious criminal convictions or are listed on Chicago gang databases. 
 
 The American Civil Liberties Union maintains those exemptions, which could result in holding in custody someone not guilty of a recent crime, "expose the city to liability for violations of the 4th Amendment," according to a letter the ACLU sent to the mayor and aldermen last month. 
 
 Ald. Carlos Ramirez-Rosa, 35th, has been pushing to get Chicago to join other cities that have eliminated similar exemptions, but the Emanuel administration so far has rebuffed his efforts, as recently as Friday by canceling a meeting on the issue. 
 
 "It's quite funny and hypocritical that at the same time as (Emanuel is) putting forward this lawsuit saying that we want to defend the Constitution, here the ACLU has said that our own sanctuary city policy is in violation of the supreme law of the land," said Ramirez-Rosa, who also stressed that he supports the lawsuit. 
 
 Ramirez-Rosa's view runs counter to the image Emanuel has tried to portray on the issue in mostly Democratic Chicago, which has a significant Latino population that's become increasingly politically active.
– The war of words between Chicago and the federal government over "sanctuary cities" policy is heating up. Attorney General Jeff Sessions slammed the city's leaders Monday over their lawsuit against the Trump administration, saying they "have demonstrated an open hostility to enforcing laws designed to protect law enforcement" and "instead have adopted an official policy of protecting criminal aliens who prey on their own residents," despite a surge in violent crime, Politico reports. Sessions said Mayor Rahm Emanuel has complained that the federal government is demanding a "reordering of law enforcement practice"—but that is what is needed to combat "the culture of lawlessness that has beset the city." "It's this simple: Comply with the law or forgo taxpayer dollars," Sessions said. Chicago is suing over plans to withhold police grant funding from cities that fail to meet federal conditions, including granting immigration officials unlimited access to police stations, the Chicago Tribune reports. Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson said Monday that the federal government's plans will damage public safety and community policing. "Undocumented immigrants are not driving violence in Chicago, and that’s why I want our officers focused on community policing and not trying to be the immigration police," he said, per the Chicago Sun-Times.