Contact: Timothy Svoboda, (202) 225-2476
(Washington, D.C.) – Congressman Glenn Grothman (R-Glenbeulah) has introduced the Ending Sanctuary Cities Act. This bill will put more pressure on states to follow federal laws by making them choose between receiving federal grant money and continuing to unlawfully harbor illegal immigrants. The Secretary of Homeland Security would be required to submit delinquent jurisdictions to Congress.
Additionally, individual law enforcement officers in these “sanctuary cities” will be protected from discharge or discrimination from any state or local government
“Our job is to keep Americans safe and our country secure, and so-called sanctuary cities impede our ability to do just that,” said Grothman. “Not enforcing our current immigration laws is a public safety issue. In fact, 121 people who were released from immigration custody were later charged with murder between 2010 and 2014.
It’s not just cities passively disobeying the law, as we saw when the mayor of Oakland actively worked to hide illegal immigrants from ICE. It is time we held states accountable for disobeying federal immigration laws and harboring illegal immigrants who sometimes turn out to be criminals themselves.”
Background
“The term “sanctuary city” is a broad term applied to jurisdictions that have policies in place designed to limit cooperation with or involvement in federal immigration enforcement actions. Cities, counties and some states have a range of informal policies as well as actual laws that qualify as “sanctuary” positions.
Most of the policies center around not cooperating with federal law enforcement on immigration policies. Many of the largest cities in the country have forms of such policies.
In 2015, more than 200 state and local jurisdictions did not honor requests from Immigration and Customs Enforcement to detain individuals, ICE Director Sarah Saldaña testified before Congress, and a subset of that group refused to give access to their jails and prisons to ICE.
According to tracking by the Center for Immigration Studies, a think tank that advocates for restricting immigration and opposes sanctuary policies, roughly 300 sanctuary jurisdictions rejected more than 17,000 detention requests, between January 1, 2014, and September 30, 2015.”1
“Oakland, Calif., Mayor Libby Schaaf says she has no regrets about warning residents of an impending raid by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, even as the agency blasted the move as politically motivated and reckless.
It comes as sanctuary jurisdictions — a loose term generally used to describe areas whose laws do not require cooperation with federal immigration officials — butt up against the Trump administration’s crackdown on enforcement.
The dispute began on Saturday when Schaaf posted a message on Twitter saying she had learned from ‘multiple credible sources’ that ICE ‘is preparing to conduct an operation in the Bay Area, including Oakland, starting as soon as within the next 24 hours.’”2
1Kopan, Tal. “What Are Sanctuary Cities, and Can They Be Defunded?” CNN, Cable News Network, 26 Mar. 2018, www.cnn.com/2017/01/25/politics/sanctuary-cities-explained/index.html.
2Held, Amy. “Oakland Mayor Stands By ‘Fair Warning’ Of Impending ICE Operation.” NPR, NPR, 1 Mar. 2018, www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/03/01/589948064/oakland-mayor-stands-by-fair-warning-of-impending-ice-operation.
