The Union Pacific Police Department — patrolling 32,000 miles of railroad track in 23 states — is no longer cooperating with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency following pressure from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
On Monday, the ACLU announced that the nearly 200 special agents who patrol for Union Pacific Railroad have stopped all cooperation with ICE, shielding illegal aliens from arrest and detainment, since March.
The move means that Union Pacific officers will not be allowed to detain a person on the suspicion that they are illegally in the U.S. Likewise, the officers are banned from asking about a person’s immigration status, asking for immigration records, and turning illegal aliens over to ICE agents.
Union Pacific’s helping to shield illegal aliens from detection in the U.S. comes after the ACLU, Palestinian Youth Movement, Black Butte Center for Railroad Culture, Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice, Bend the Arc Jewish Action, and El Centro Cultural de Mexico had lobbied the corporation to stop all cooperation with ICE.
Similarly, Immigrant Defenders Law Center, the Western State College of Law Immigration Clinic, Public Counsel, and the Esperanza Immigrant Rights Project had filed a lawsuit against ICE, demanding they reveal records on the level of cooperation that had with Union Pacific over the years.
That lawsuit against ICE has now been settled.
The Department of Justice, earlier this year, filed a lawsuit against King County, Washington, officials for their sanctuary airport policy where they have banned ICE agents from using King County International Airport to deport illegal aliens.
Today, there are anywhere from 11 to 22 million illegal aliens living in the U.S. At the southern border, federal immigration officials have said that about half of all border crossers successfully enter the country, undetected.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.