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Following the swearing in of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, President Trump signed three executive actions to further his “law and order” agenda.
President Trump stated that “I’m signing three executive actions today designed to restore safety in America.”
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The first action aim at international crime organizations, namely drug cartels, and orders a wide-ranging effort to further prosecute and deter such crime.
It calls on the administration to strengthen federal law to reduce transnational criminal organizations, including those that smuggle drugs, people, and weapons and engage in financial and cyber crime.
Another action focuses on preventing crime against law enforcement, including a push to define new federal crimes and potentially establish new mandatory minimum sentences.
The order directs the attorney general to review existing federal laws “to determine whether those laws are adequate to address the protection and safety” of law enforcement officers at all levels.
Following that review, Sessions will make recommendations to the president for potential new legislation, which would include “defining new crimes of violence and establishing new mandatory minimum sentences for existing crimes of violence against” officers.
Sessions is also directed to evaluate all Justice Department grant funding programs “to determine the extent to which its grant funding supports and protects” officers and recommend any changes.
Finally, a third order is directed at crime reduction more broadly, giving Sessions broad authority to establish a task force aimed at developing strategies “to reduce crime, including, in particular, illegal immigration, drug trafficking, and violent crime.”
“We have a crime problem,” Sessions said at his swearing-in.
“I wish the rise that we’re seeing in crime in America today were some sort of aberration or blip,” he continued, calling it a “dangerous permanent trend that places the health and safety of the American people at risk.”
