One of the promises bandied about in the Republican debates earlier this year had to do with de-funding sanctuary cities. Typical of the rhetoric and hyperbole were these statements made in Iowa- Ted Cruz: “We will finally, finally, finally secure the borders and end sanctuary cities”; Marco Rubio: “If you are a sanctuary city, you will lose your federal funding”; and from Donald Trump, he used a single term to characterize sanctuaries: “Crap”.
Now that we are moving closer to the General Election with the presidential candidates nominated, we see that Mr. Trump is making immigration and sanctuary cities a centerpiece of his campaign. In July, Politifact Florida rated “Mostly True” his claim that Hillary Clinton “wants sanctuary cities”.
Ironically, Secretary Clinton is joined in this stance by a surprising group of people. It turns out that sanctuary entities have been created by local law enforcement around the country, and Iowa is no exception, as explained in an article in the Washington Post:
“In Iowa, at least 26 of the state’s 99 counties are deemed sanctuaries — including some of the state’s most conservative.
“The designation is an informal one, assigned by activists on both sides of the immigration debate. Governments are generally considered sanctuaries if local officials refuse to honor requests by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to hold onto suspected illegal immigrants arrested on minor charges while federal agents figure out their status.
“Typically, the decisions that lead to a community earning sanctuary status are made without fanfare or public debate. Instead, the refusal to cooperate with ICE usually comes from a police chief, a sheriff or a government attorney — not necessarily a politician looking to extend an act of mercy toward illegal immigrants.
“Republican presidential contenders on the campaign trail have avoided such details. …At times, the candidates have blasted sanctuary cities while standing in one.”
I found one of the best explanations of what constitutes a sanctuary city or county contained in a Rolling Stone article in July of last year. It explains why local law enforcement has been the main driver behind their establishment.
“At issue here are several controversial federal immigration initiatives, including a program called Secure Communities. This program essentially forces local law enforcement officials into the role of deputized federal immigration agents. Under Secure Communities, anyone arrested anywhere is supposed to have their fingerprint information sent to the federal government, which in turn checks it against both the FBI and Department of Homeland Security databases.
If the Feds find that the suspect is undocumented, they ask the locals to hold the suspect until he or she can be collected for deportation.
“When ICE asks local jails to hold these suspects, all they do is issue what what they call a ‘detainer’. But a detainer is not a court order. It's not a warrant. It's simply a request that local cops keep a suspect in jail willy-nilly until ICE decides to pick him or her up.
“Courts in some regions last year ruled that these ‘detainers' are unconstitutional detentions, and that local jails that keep people imprisoned without a warrant can be held liable. Cities like San Francisco, in other words, can now be sued for obeying these ‘detainers'. The federal government has conceded these rulings have hurt the program.
“Because of all this, and because the program imposed such a serious financial burden, a number of major cities… passed measures opposing Secure Communities. In practice, they opted out of the "mandatory" program, setting up a classic states' rights conflict.
“This, largely, is what we're talking about when we talk about ‘sanctuary cities’. For cities and states, Secure Communities is a triple whammy. Apart from asking the states to do ICE's investigative work and pay for the detention of suspects, there's a serious legal issue.”
Complicating the issue is that the DHS, recognizing the shortcomings of Secure Communities, scrapped it in favor of a new program called Priority Enforcement Program (PEP). This program has already been called a re-branding of the old program, due to its continued use of detainers.
The tragic incident in July of last year, in which Kate Steinle was accidentally killed, has been the impetus for much of the dialog surrounding the issue of sanctuary cities. This account in Wikipedia includes a discussion of the sanctuary city issue as it applies to San Francisco:
“On March 26, 2015, at the request of the San Francisco Sheriff’s Department, United States Bureau of Prisons (BOP) had turned [Juan Francisco Lopez-]Sanchez over to San Francisco authorities for an outstanding drug warrant. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) had issued a detainer for Sanchez requesting that he be kept in custody until immigration authorities could pick him up. As a sanctuary city, however, which limits cooperation with ICE only to cases where active charges against the immigrant are identified, San Francisco did not honor the detainer and released him, since they found no active warrant for his arrest.”
There is an revelation elsewhere in the Wikipedia account that the gun was stolen from a federal agent’s vehicle, and subsequently found by Sanchez under a bench, wrapped in a t-shirt. I recently wrote that this type of gun diversion is alarmingly common. Guns that should be under tight control end up killing innocent people such as Kate Steinle. As I concluded in that piece, it may no longer be enough to lock guns up. If they do end up being diverted through theft or loss, they can be accidentally of intentionally discharged by someone other than their owner. In our high-tech society, it should be a priority to make guns that can only be fired by their rightful owner. But I digress.
The issue of sanctuary cities is complex, and has led to predictable knee-jerk reactions. An uninformed electorate can be swayed by politicians looking for easy-to-make campaign promises that sound good to their base. As always, voter beware.
D. Norman
