On the recordJuly 7, 2004
I looked into this argument; and to transfer this authority to Homeland Security, there is no existing precedent for enforcement of this law by Homeland Security. It is a legitimate function of the Department of Justice to enforce Federal law; and, in fact, this would be bringing an action against local government. And that is something that there is a precedent for under the Department of Justice, but no precedent for that under Homeland Security. So if this were all transferred to Homeland Security, we would not have action that could be brought by the Department of Justice in many other cases as well as this.
Source
govinfo.gov




