City attorney outlines immigration executive orders, legal limits and local protections for immigrants

Edmundo Lee Ho, an assistant city attorney who manages St. Paul’s immigrant and refugee program, told the City Council’s organizational committee that a series of recent federal executive orders and agency changes have produced “more than we can kind of keep up with” and outlined the legal and practical implications for the city and immigrant communities.

Lee Ho reviewed several federal developments: executive actions addressing birthright citizenship, pauses to refugee resettlement programs, reinstatement of expedited removal, designation of organized crime groups as national security threats, rescission of the prior “sensitive locations” policy that limited immigration arrests at schools and places of worship, and an executive order he cited as Executive Order 14,159 that directs review and potential withholding of federal funds from jurisdictions deemed insufficiently cooperative with federal immigration enforcement.

Lee Ho said a constitutional provision, the Fourteenth Amendment’s citizenship…