Iowans among law officers opposing Trump policy

Sixty-three police chiefs and sheriffs from around the country - including five from Iowa - have issued a letter saying they don't want their officers acting as federal immigration officers and don't want to lose federal funding if their cities and counties are branded as 'sanctuaries.”

The letter is a response to President Donald Trump's executive order in January, which called for increased use of the local law enforcement to perform immigration checks and threatened to withhold federal money from sanctuary cities and counties.

The letter, first reported by The Guardian, is not addressed to the president but to senators.

'We believe,” the letter states, 'that we can best serve our communities by leaving the enforcement of immigration laws to the federal government. Threatening the removal of valuable grant funding from jurisdictions that choose not to spend limited resources enforcing federal immigration law is extremely problematic.”

Besides being signed by chiefs in large communities including Orlando, Houston, Boston, Seattle and Los Angeles County, the letter contains chief from smaller communities also.

Iowans listed are: Sheriff Timothy Lane, Scott County; Sheriff Paul Fitzgerald, Story County; Sheriff Bill McCarthy, Polk County; Mark Prosser, Public Safety Director, Storm Lake; and Chief Mike Tupper, Marshalltown.