Thank you, Sheriff Judd, for that kind introduction. I know, Sheriff, as a native Floridian, how
painful today must be for you. It is for every American today.
It cannot be denied that something dangerous and unhealthy
is happening, and we are once again, watching the images of our children—
terrified— streaming from their school with their hands above their heads.
When parents, once again, go to sleep in fear that their
kids will not be safe when they leave for their school bus in the morning.
We must confront this problem. And I know each and every one
of you in this room feel that way.
We, at the Department of Justice, will make this a priority,
but we know that your Deputies are the ones who arrive first, respond to
danger, and save our children without regard for their own personal safety.
But this cannot continue.
We are going to take action. We must reverse these trends.
Since the day I took office— in conjunction with our state
and local colleagues— we have prioritized violent crime and violations of
federal fire arms laws.
In the first quarter after I was sworn in, we saw a 23%
increase in gun prosecutions and have now charged the most federal firearm
prosecutions in a decade. It’s no good to have laws if they are not enforced.
I’ve directed my office of Legal Policy to work with our
partners at Health and Human Services, Education, Homeland Security, and across
this administration to study the intersection of mental health and criminality
and identify how we can stop people capable of such heinous crimes.
It is too often the case that the perpetrators of these
terrible attacks had given of signals in advance.
You are experienced professionals. You and I know that we
cannot arrest everybody that somebody thinks is dangerous.
But I think we can and must do better. We owe it to every
one of those kids crying outside their school yesterday and all those who never
made it out. Our hearts are hurting today.
I think it’s also a reminder of how important the work we do
really is.
The most important thing that any government does is to
protect the safety and the rights of its citizens, and I understand the importance
in this country of respecting the civil rights of every American. But, the
first civil right is the right to be safe.
Everything else that we do as a government depends on that.
We cannot allow politics or bad policies to get in the way of that mission. All
of us—no matter your political party—depend upon law enforcement officers like
you.
I know firsthand the important work that each of you
do. I was a federal prosecutor for 14
years, and I was blessed to partner every day with federal, state, and local
law enforcement officers to protect people’s rights. We were a close group— teammates. We took tons of drugs off our streets,
dismantled domestic and international gangs and fraud schemes, and we
prosecuted civil rights offenders to the fullest extent possible.
There is nothing I am more proud of than what we
accomplished in our district. It made a difference.
You are the thin brown line that stands between law-abiding
people and criminals – between safety and lawlessness.
And the American people know that. Last summer, Gallup released their annual
poll, which showed that overall confidence in the police rose significantly
last year. That is a good sign.
I’m not sure if you all saw this, but there was a survey
recently that showed that more and more of our young people want to go into law
enforcement. According to the survey, it
used to be the number 10 dream job for kids under 12.
Now it’s number three overall—and for boys, it’s number
one. Fewer and fewer kids dream about
being athletes; more and more want to wear the badge.
That tells me that we’re doing something right.
It was largely because of smarter, more professional law
enforcement policies and better training and management of law officers like
you that crime went down in this country for 20 years. It was a long and historic crime decline,
with murder rates cut by one half.
But over the past two or three years, the country and some
political leaders lost the focus that had brought so much progress. Without
proper support and affirmation, our work became more difficult.
The result: the violent crime rate went up nationally by
nearly seven percent from 2014 to 2016.
Robberies went up. Assaults went
up nearly 10 percent. Rape went up by
nearly 11 percent. Murder shot up by
more than 20 percent.
Meanwhile we have suffered the deadliest drug crisis in
American history.
And as sheriffs over large populations, you face special
challenges and threats. These areas tend
to have higher than average rates of violent crime, aggravated assault, and
especially robbery.
The counties you represent have also been hit especially
hard by the drug crisis. From 2014 to
2016, there was a sixfold increase in fentanyl overdose deaths in 24 of our 40
largest metro areas. In one major
county, we saw a 28-fold increase.
We face serious challenges, but we will not stand by and
watch violence and addiction rise. Plain
and simple, we will not allow the progress made by our women and men in blue
over the past two decades to simply slip through our fingers.
We will not cede one community, one block, or one street
corner to violent thugs or poison peddlers.
We will protect the poor as well as the rich.
The day I was sworn in as Attorney General, President Trump
sent me a simple, straightforward executive order: reduce crime in
America. Not to preside over
ever-increasing crime rates. Reduce
crime in America.
At the Department of Justice, we embrace that goal. And you and I know from experience that it
can be done.
Some people don’t think it’s possible. They think that crime rates are like the
tides.
But they’re wrong.
Strong law enforcement and prosecutions can bring them down.
That’s why we’re trusting our prosecutors again and letting
them prosecute the most serious, readily provable offense. We’re not going to hide the facts to avoid
giving out harsh penalties. Justice
means giving the sentence that is deserved by the crime.
That’s also why we have reprioritized the Project Safe
Neighborhoods, which creates a customized crime-reduction strategy for each of
our 94 U.S. Attorney districts across America.
It’s not Washington-centered; it’s locally-centered.
We’re doing that because it is our goal to bring down
violent crime, homicides, opioids prescriptions, and overdose deaths. These are the explicit goals we’ve
established.
And over the past year, we’ve been getting after them. In 2017, the Department of Justice brought
cases against the greatest number of violent criminals in a quarter of a
century.
We also arrested and charged hundreds of people suspected of
contributing to the ongoing opioid crisis.
And let me just say, you all are doing incredible work to
help us turn the tide.
I heard about how Manatee County, Florida Sheriff Rick Wells
partnered with the U.S. Attorney’s Office to go after all drug cases in the
county. Rick tells me that they went
from having 11 overdoses per day at their peak to less than one a day now.
Rick helped cut overdoses by nearly three-quarters over six
months and fatal overdoses by 85 percent in one year. That’s incredible work.
To help us find more opioid dealers and more evidence to
convict them, I created the Opioid Fraud and Abuse Detection Unit back in
August. This unit uses data analytics to
find outliers and the tell-tale signs of crime—like who is prescribing the most
drugs, who is dispensing the most drugs, and whose patients are dying from
overdoses. This unit is already leading
to indictments.
On Tuesday, we arrested and charged a doctor in Las Vegas
for allegedly prescribing fentanyl to patients without a legitimate medical
purpose—and then lying to Medicare about it.
Our new data analytics unit helped make this arrest possible.
That means fewer drugs on the streets of your
communities—less drug activity, fewer overdoses, and, I believe, fewer
dangerous situations for your deputies to go into.
For another example, last year the Department worked with
our international allies to arrest or charge more than 4,000 MS-13 members.
That’s one more reason that we are no longer allowing
so-called “sanctuary” jurisdictions to nullify federal immigration law if they
want to receive our law enforcement grants.
It’s not that we want to de-fund these jurisdictions. We just want them to rethink their policies
and start to cooperate with federal law enforcement.
I cannot send funds to jurisdictions who won’t meet minimum
standards of partnership.
I know that this issue is important to this organization, and
I want to thank you for the work that you have done.
I was in Florida last week, and I had the chance to meet
with a number of Florida sheriffs.
After working with the Major County Sheriffs of America, 17
Florida sheriffs have worked out an agreement with ICE to help them take
criminal aliens out of the Sunshine State.
Aliens held by these sheriffs are held under color of
federal authority—that protects these sheriffs from being sued just for doing
their jobs.
I want to encourage more of these agreements across
America. We truly want to work with you
to solve this problem.
I would like to take a moment to address the
Schumer-Rounds-Collins proposal introduced in the Senate yesterday. I’ve seen
these proposals before, and I know what this means.
It means that if you can get in the country today (or even
any time through June), you can’t be deported.
This is open borders and mass amnesty and the opposite of
what the American people support.
This amendment— plain as day— will invite a mad rush of illegality
across our borders. It would protect from deportation millions of illegal
aliens present in the United States today and countless others who will most
certainly flood across the border.
The obvious intent of this amendment is to lay the
groundwork for a mass amnesty— an amnesty which would likely benefit illegal
aliens who are not even in the United States today.
Among its other flaws, it fails to close existing loopholes
in law that permit the near unfettered entry of unaccompanied minors and family
units— an unacceptable flaw that dooms this legislation. This past election,
the American people spoke strongly of their desire to fix these problems.
Legislation like this raises questions as to why we even have elections and
undermine confidence in the public process.
President Trump has laid out a very reasonable and generous
proposal.
This bill does not effectuate the President’s vision, nor
does it reflect the desires of American people.
We are already starting to see positive signs of the Trump
Administration’s approach to crime.
In the first six months of last year, the increase in the
murder rate slowed significantly and violent crime actually went down. Publicly available data for the rest of the
year suggest further progress.
These are major accomplishments that benefit the American
people. And we could not have realized
them without you—without a strong partnership between our federal team and our
state and local law enforcement personnel.
Helping law enforcement do their jobs, helping the police
get better, and celebrating the noble, honorable, and challenging work of our
law enforcement communities will always be a top priority of President Trump
and this Department of Justice.
Indeed, his first executive order to us on my first day was
to back the men and women in uniform.
Together we can do this.
We can bring down crime and give every American peace of mind.
I want to close by reiterating my deep appreciation and
profound thanks to all the women and men of law enforcement – federal, state,
local, and tribal. I want to thank every
sheriff in America. Since well before
our founding, the independently elected Sheriff has been seen as the people’s
protector, who keeps law enforcement close to and amenable to the people.
The work that you do – that you have dedicated your lives to
– is essential. I believe it. The Department of Justice believes it. And President Trump believes it.
You can be certain about this: we have your back and you
have our thanks.
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