The Editorial Board sees no reason to punish millions of Americans by withholding financial aid to those cities who are sanctuaries for illegal aliens. I’m still waiting for the editorial arguing that Mr. Obama shouldn’t have threatened to do the same when it comes to school systems refusing to implement policies that allow gender confused boys to enter the bathrooms, showers, and locker rooms of underage girls.
Trump pledged to ‘end’ sanctuary cities. Common sense, not threats, should guide him.
PRESIDENT-ELECT Donald Trump’s threat to deport 2 million to 3 million illegal immigrants with criminal records — a flimsy number thatcrumbles upon scrutiny — has caused tremors in some of the nation’s biggest metropolitan areas, especially those considered “sanctuary cities.†In fact, while some localities impose limits on working with federal immigration authorities, a large majority — including most regarded as sanctuary cities — do cooperate when it comes to helping to transfer and deport dangerous and violent felons scheduled to be released from jail or prison.
Usually they are forced to do so, because the Feds already have detainers on the illegals, and the jails are typically run by the county sheriff’s department or the state, not the cities. And, yes, the majority of cities do work with Los Federales on this. That’s a strawman argument, because it’s the ones who don’t that are the problem.
The question is, what happens if Mr. Trump wants to go further by enlisting local law enforcement agencies to hand over or help sweep up undocumented immigrants convicted for small-time shoplifting, driving without a license and other minor offenses? The issue — part of a “negotiation,†in the words of Reince Priebus, Mr. Trump’s pick for White House chief of staff — is which crimes are sufficiently serious that they should trigger deportation, and reasonably require cooperation in that regard from local officials.
This is prognostication without evidence that it might happen. Regardless, local law enforcement is, by law, supposed to inform ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) when they have detained an illegal alien.
What crimes are sufficiently serious? Well, being in the country illegally would be a start.
A common-sense test should apply to federal policies and local ones. A fair-minded federal standard would not require local law enforcement agencies to be pressed into service as deportation agencies chasing or handing over undocumented immigrants who have committed minor offenses. To do so would subvert relations between law enforcement and local immigrant communities, in which trust and cooperation are critical.
The only ones suggesting that local law enforcement might be pressed into being La Migra are the members of the WP Editorial Board, and then they set the conditions where they shouldn’t.
A fair-minded local standard would ensure that police, sheriffs and corrections officials see to it that dangerous criminals — violent felons and those convicted of multiple serious offenses, drunk drivers, sex abusers, drug dealers — do not slip through the cracks.
The WPEB goes on to note the situation in which Kate Steinle (the article doesn’t even have the courtesy of printing her name) was murdered by an illegal alien, who was back in the country yet again illegally, who had a long rapsheet of felonies, who “slipped through the cracks” in San Francisco. In other words, the SF law enforcement ignored the federal detainer. This is rather the point in cracking down on sanctuary cities, places illegals, especially those with criminal records/wanted for criminal offenses, can stream to, know that law enforcement will mostly ignore them, and, if they are picked up, the elected officials will force them to be let go.
The tricky part is that there is no single accepted definition of a sanctuary city. Some, including New York, cooperate in handing over some felons, but not others, to federal authorities at their release date, depending on the severity of the crime. Others, such as Cook County in Illinois, which includes Chicago, refuse to turn over undocumented immigrants unless federal agents obtain a court warrant.
Perhaps they should have read the Ohio Jobs and Justice PAC page on sanctuary cities, which defines them and lists them, essentially the first to ever do so, and cities and counties are continuously added, ones which are primarily run by Democrats.
The Trump administration is entitled to seek fair and consistent standards that protect communities from dangerous criminals without poisoning relations between local law enforcement and immigrant communities. Better to negotiate terms than punish millions of Americans by suspending billions in federal funding to localities.
You mean like how Arizona was threatened by the Obama administration over their illegal aliens bill, SB1070? Or states were threatened by Team Obama over their gay marriage restrictions, typically passed by the citizens voting on new state constitution amendments? Or how NC was threatened over HB2, which stops state, county, and local governments from forcing private businesses to accomodate the gender confused, as well as not allowing them to use government property as such (even though there were no penalties)?
As far as fair and consistent standards, they are already on the books! There are federal laws about this. The Democratic Party run sanctuary cities are not in legal compliance.
Read: Washington Post Totally Wants Trump To Negotiate On Sanctuary Cities »
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