to create laws that crack down on all these foreigners – they’re trying to make the argument against the legal concept of “sanctuary” cities.The way they see it, if they can’t have their mean-spirited legislation such as what Arizona tried to enact to encourage local police to look for people with immigration issues, then the other side can’t have the sanctuary city concept.
AFTER ALL, THEY argue, if the police aren’t allowed to strictly enforce federal immigration law because it is local government interfering with federal policies, then somehow sanctuary cities also have to constitute an interference by local government with federal policies on immigration.
Anybody who thinks about the issue rationally will realize that logic is absurd.
But I couldn’t help but notice that when U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton this week imposed the injunction that prevents the bulk of Arizona’s new law from taking effect, one of the provisions she left untouched was the part where the Legislature took away the ability of local governments to declare themselves “sanctuary” cities.
As far as I know, the only Arizona city that had taken such action was Phoenix itself. So now, the fact that Phoenix city officials made their symbolic statement on the issue will not matter. I’m sure some will argue that means the attitudes of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio (who this week said he would lock up anybody who engaged in civil disobedience against his law enforcement agency) now prevail.
THE PROBLEM IS that in reading assorted rhetoric from people who want to take down the concept of sanctuary cities, it becomes obvious that many of these people don’t have a clue what they really are.
There is no one single concept at work. Each municipality that has adopted such action has come up with its own legalese. I am aware of one Chicago suburb (Calumet City, Ill.) that won’t call itself a “sanctuary city,” instead preferring the term “safe space.”
Regardless of the terminology, the basic concept is that local police are specifically told that federal immigration law is not their concern, and that they are not to be questioning people they encounter for various reasons about their immigration status.
Some departments go so far as to refuse to offer up information voluntarily about people to federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials. They restrict their cooperation to what is required by the letter of the law.
I DON’T SEE how the tentative delay to Arizona’s law somehow means this idea must be struck down as well. If anything, I take the judicial interference with Arizona’s effort to use local police in such a manner as an upholding of the general concept of “sanctuary” cities.
Police shouldn’t get involved in federal immigration issue. They should stay out. That is the basic “sanctuary” city idea. It ought to be the way all local police departments operate, because there are differing jurisdictions and the end result of too much legal commingling is chaos.
The logic behind making a bold statement out of “sanctuary” city status is that it is supposed to make people who might have issues with immigration know that the local cops aren’t going to be out harassing them, nor will there become major immigration issues resulting from a traffic ticket.
When phrased that way, it is so logical. That truly is the way all police ought to be operating, since the local cops usually have enough legitimate issues of their own to deal with. I’m sure most local police across the country would prefer not to have to take on more duties – especially since in these tough economic times, I don’t know of any law enforcement agencies that have more money on hand to pay for the cost of providing extra policing duties.
IF ANYTHING, THE people in Arizona who seriously wanted their local cops to be able to start harassing people and weeding out those without visas so as to pressure the federal government to deport them strike me almost as ridiculous as those political people who in the past decade or so have felt the need to recast their state laws concerning marriage.
States that had never recognized marriage as being legal except for heterosexual couples went ahead and rewrote their statutes so as to make it clear that marriage can NOT be between gay couples. Instead of writing laws to set rules by which people coexist in a society, they’re more interested in telling certain people, “You Don’t Belong!”
That is why the protests are going to continue across the country by people who always saw Arizona’s action as a blow against their existence. Because the fact is that Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer already is organizing the effort to try to get a federal appeals panel to overturn Bolton’s i
njunction.She’s not as interested in having the courts engage in a legitimate review of the merits of this law, so much as she wants the instant gratification of seeing people get kicked out of the country so she can try to take some credit for it – and gain the votes of the nativists in the process.
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1 comments:
hey greg did you see the hispanic waving the hugh mexican flag yesterday at the downtown phoenix ingrate protest ? what a debacle .talk about putting nails in the amnesty and dream act coffin.the sanctuary policy in phoenix WAS, if a cop stopped a person who committed a crime (lets use a traffic infraction as an example wont we ) and it was determind during the exchange the perp had no identification,could only speak spanish,and looked suspious,prior to bolton's ruling the phoenix cop had to get permission from a supervisor who would or would not authorize the cop to proceed with the situation,now with the law chane the cop can proceed in doing whatever is necessary without having to make that call.that policy was ONLY for hispanic looking people,the rest of us citizens were processed very differently.citizen's would be immeadiatley ticketed,have a court date set and possibly have our vehcile towed only to be left on the side of the street .the illegal hispanic was usually let go to continue his lawbreaking.that b.s has now been stopped in phoenix.
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