Department of Justice attorneys are attempting to put some distance between themselves and demands from Donald Trump's White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller for ICE agents to come up with 3,000 immigrant arrests per day.
In May, Miller told Fox News personality Sean Hannity, "Under President Trump’s leadership, we are looking to set a goal of a minimum of 3,000 arrests for ICE every day and President Trump is going to keep pushing to get that number up higher each and every day,"
According to a report from Politico's Kyle Cheney and Josh Gerstein, DOJ attorney Yaakov Roth was put on the spot over that number and told a judge the number came from “anonymous reports in the newspapers.”
The report notes that there is a growing "gulf" between what the White House wants and what DOJ can defend before skeptical judges who have serious questions about the sweeps that have all the appearances of racial profiling.
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Politico is reporting, "The existence of the target has created particular complications in the case challenging the immigration sweeps in Los Angeles. The administration is fighting an order that a federal judge issued last month prohibiting ICE from conducting 'roving' immigration arrests based on broad criteria such as presence at a home improvement store or car wash."
The report notes that, on Monday, Roth battled with judges but did concede, "... that such a quota, if it existed, could support claims that some arrests did not meet the legal standard."
"In this instance, the chasm may be undermining the DOJ’s already strained credibility with judges," Politico is reporting.
You can read more here.