FOX5 Washington, DC: Montgomery County hires former immigration services director for Obama administration

IRLI In The News

April 5, 2017

By Tom Fitzgerald

WASHINGTON – Montgomery County officials are defending their move to hire an attorney who used to be the director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services for the Obama administration.

Leon Rodriguez has helped craft and enact immigration policies that President Donald Trump and his administration have been highly critical of. Now, he is going to work with Montgomery County to advise them on immigration law.

While supporters of this move say it is an effort to bring in an immigration law expert, others say it is a clear preemptive legal strike by a county that is already embattled over its immigration policy and at odds with the Trump administration.

The advice will not be cheap. Rodriguez will be earning $575 an hour, according to the documents uncovered by the Immigration Reform Law Institute.

Why does Montgomery County need him? With the county now on a list of jurisdictions refusing federal detainer requests, Immigration Reform Law Institute investigative associate Ian Smith said the move to bring on Rodriguez means county taxpayers will be on the hook to pay up for the county to lawyer up against the Trump administration’s efforts to crack down on illegal immigration. … Read the full story by Tom Fitzgerald.

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