SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Sanctuary cities are in the news this week. The working definition is a city, county, or state that limits the amount of cooperation their local police force has with federal immigration officers. To the point, local police do not hold people for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) when their only crime is being illegal immigrants. This article gives a good overview of the situation.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott threatened to cut funding for one county after its sheriff announced the agency would be scaling back its cooperation with federal immigration.
Travis County Sheriff Sally Hernandez announced last week she's scaling back the amount of aid her department provides federal immigration agents in detaining suspects who might be in the country illegally, according to the Austin American-Statesman.
Starting Feb. 1, sheriff's officials will begin honoring so-called immigration holds or "detainers" placed by federal authorities only when a suspect is booked into the Travis County Jail on charges of capital murder, aggravated sexual assault and "continuous smuggling of persons."
Otherwise, federal agents must have a court order or arrest warrant signed by a judge for the jail to continue housing a person whose immigration status is in question.
On Wednesday, Jan 25, President Trump issued an executive order stating that sanctuary jurisdictions would not be eligible for federal funds.
[Continues...]
City officials, from New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, New Haven, Syracuse and Austin, Tex., said they were prepared for a protracted fight.
"We're going to defend all of our people regardless of where they come from, regardless of their immigration status," Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York said at a news conference with other city officials.
In Chicago, Mayor Rahm Emanuel declared: "I want to be clear: We're going to stay a sanctuary city. There is no stranger among us. Whether you're from Poland or Pakistan, whether you're from Ireland or India or Israel and whether you're from Mexico or Moldova, where my grandfather came from, you are welcome in Chicago as you pursue the American dream."
[...] "The rhetoric doesn't match the legal authority," said Peter L. Markowitz, the director of the Immigration Justice Clinic at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in New York. "In fact, the president has very limited power to exercise any kind of significant defunding."
According to a 2012 Supreme Court decision, Mr. Markowitz said, Congress is not permitted to set conditions on spending to coerce states or localities to participate in a federal program against their will. Any conditions, at a minimum, must be directly related to the punitive action.
As of time of editing, 12:30AM EDT, this is the newest article on the topic:
President Trump is hailing the first victory in his fight against "sanctuary cities" after a South Florida mayor ordered his employees on Thursday to begin working more closely with federal immigration authorities.
For years, Miami-Dade County has refused to hold some undocumented immigrants in its jails for federal immigration agents. But after Trump signed an executive order threatening to withhold federal funding from sanctuary cities, Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Gimenez changed his mind.
Gimenez signed an executive order Thursday ordering the director of his corrections department to begin honoring all requests by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to hold immigration suspects in Miami-Dade County jails.
[...] Gimenez said he made the decision to ensure that the county does not lose out on $355 million in federal funding it has coming in 2017.
-- submitted from IRC
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 27 2017, @10:17PM
New question: If illegally immigrated inhabitants of a city cannot legally hold a job and don't pay taxes (well, okay, sales tax, I suppose) and cannot vote, of what use are they to the city? Other than 'feelings', I mean.
I'm being equally serious here.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 27 2017, @10:33PM
"Equally serious?"
You are disingenuously stating your arguments as leading questions.
That's not even a true dialectic, its just smug assholeness.
Stop wasting people's time.
(Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Friday January 27 2017, @11:23PM
He might be being a smug asshole, but I wonder about it too. Let me try to rephrase in a less assholeish manner: "A city chooses to not disclose their (undocumented/illegal/whatever word you'd please) inhabitants. What benefit is there to the city and the rest of its inhabitants by following this course of action?"
I'm earnestly unopposed to the idea if there are benefits. Maybe it's a lack of imagination on my part, but I can't come up with anything substantial.
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 27 2017, @11:32PM
All those rapes eventually solve the unskilled labor gap caused by liberal millennials never growing up. They're the ones not having kids. They're the ones welcoming in their doom with open arms. They're the ones who won't fight back when it does happen. It maintains order in a properly managed post-scarcity society. Look to Europe for your future. Plato would probably be proud.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 28 2017, @02:48AM
Because they usually are paying some level of taxes such as payroll or sales, but their illegal status means they are consuming no personal benefits only general benefits like using the roads.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 28 2017, @04:43AM
When a portion of the population fear the police then they avoid all contact. That means they don't report crimes, and they don't come forward as witnesses. The police need the trust of the people to do their jobs. It also means that anyone can blackmail these people simply by threatening to get the police involved in a dispute. Even if the police will only detain people already arrested, not just randoms they encounter during the course of their duties that's not enough - the cost of getting deported is so great that people won't even take the tiniest chance of it happening to them so they avoid all contact.
These people are here regardless of what the law says. One approach is to pour as much shit and misery on them as possible in the hope that enough despair will cause them to just go away, the other approach is to respect their human dignity and maximize what contributions they can make to the community where they reside.
(Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Saturday January 28 2017, @11:08AM
That's probably the best rationalization for it I've heard. I'll need to think about that for a while, but it's pretty compelling.
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!