Although the immigration reform debate has been stalled in Congress for some time, a new discussion has revolved around “sanctuary cities” — generally defined as jurisdictions with policies or laws that limit the extent to which local law enforcement will assist the Federal Government on immigration matters. Currently, more than 200 State and local jurisdictions have policies that do not honor U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention requests.
The sanctuary movement grew out of efforts by churches in the 1980s to provide safe havens for those fleeing violence in Central America. The logic behind sanctuary cities is that encouraging immigrants to work with police without fear of deportation helps authorities improve public safety.
On July 21, the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing at which relatives of those killed by undocumented immigrants testified. The same day, Senators David Vitter (LA-R) and Jeff Flake (AZ-R) introduced S. 1814, the Stop Sanctuary Cities Act, to withhold Federal funding from State and local entities that fail to comply with detainer requests issued by the Department of Homeland Security.
“Sanctuary cities are not simply interfering with Federal immigration law, they are breaking it without consequence while risking public safety,” Senator Flake said.
Similar legislation — H.R. 3009, the Enforce the Law for Sanctuary Cities Act, introduced by Representative Duncan Hunter (CA-R) — passed the House by a vote of 241 to 179 on July 23. Five Republicans joined all but six Democrats in voting for the measure.
Meanwhile, in a letter to bipartisan leaders of both the House and Senate, a coalition of 21 big-city mayors argued that they were in a better position than Congress to “make the best decisions about serving our residents and ensuring public safety.” The White House has threatened to veto the legislation, saying that it “undermines current Administration efforts to remove the most dangerous convicted criminals” and ignores the need for comprehensive immigration reform.
In addition, NumbersUSA, which advocates for less immigration, urged lawmakers to oppose the bill on the basis that it did not go far enough in blocking local law enforcement grants or addressing ICE policies that the group says “have led to the release of more than 70,000 criminal aliens onto the streets.”
A possible compromise may be in the works in the form of legislation being developed by Senator Dianne Feinstein (CA-D) that would require State and local law enforcement to inform Federal immigration officials when they are about release from custody immigrants who are in the United States illegally and have been convicted of a felony.
For more background, see the March 2015 issue of Congressional Digest on “Immigration Reform” and the January 2011 issue of Supreme Court Debates on “Illegal Workers.”
