WASHINGTON—In a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi, the Immigration Reform Law Institute (IRLI) has requested the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) investigate Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner and other state prosecutors for policies that discriminate against American citizens.
IRLI's letter describes “compelling evidence” that Krasner's office “in particular but also many similar major metropolitan area state prosecutors’ offices are illegally considering immigration status in their prosecutorial decisions and thereby discriminating against U.S. citizens on the basis of their citizenship.”
As the letter further notes, “[m]any so-called 'progressive' state prosecutors do not hide their policies designed to treat aliens more leniently than U.S. citizens: they boast of them. Likewise, both organizations and academics that support the anti-borders agenda and oppose enforcement of our immigration laws openly advocate for such policies and aggressively encourage prosecutors to adopt them.”
IRLI sent a public records request to the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office in early 2024 and published a report of its findings, included in the letter to Bondi. These records describe the deliberate creation of a two-tier system of justice in which aliens are treated more leniently than U.S. citizens, in order to help them to evade potential immigration consequences of their crimes.
Noting that DOJ is already investigating the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office in Minneapolis for illegally considering race in its prosecutorial decisions, IRLI shows in its letter that considering citizenship in such decisions is as egregious a violation of federal law and of the principle of equal justice.
“For all the news lately about due process and rights for illegal aliens, it is ironic that the Philadelphia DA’s office is illegally granting extra-constitutional rights to aliens and not to U.S. citizens and legal residents,” said Dale Wilcox, executive director and general counsel of IRLI. “These anti-borders DAs have practiced this double standard for too long. We call on the Attorney General and the Justice Department to hold them accountable.”
