City leaders vow to fight immigrant crackdown
Officials do not care that federal funding is at risk. Across the country, they pledge to be Trump cabinet’s ‘worst nightmare’
NEW YORK // City leaders are vowing to intensify resistance to president Donald Trump’s promised crackdown on socalled sanctuary cities.
Attorney-general Jeff Sessions warned US cities that turning a blind eye to illegal migrants could jeopardise billions in federal funding and demanded that sanctuary cities across the country do more to turn illegal immigrants over to federal authorities for deportation.
But at a gathering of municipal officials from urban centres such as San Francisco, Seattle, Denver, Chicago and Philadelphia, Melissa Mark Viverito, the speaker of New York city council warned that they would become this administration’s worst nightmare. ” They promised to continue blocking cooperation between city police departments and federal immigration authorities and to prevent federal agents from accessing their schools and school records.
They are also considering deploying a rarely used law that enables them to investigate federal immigration practices.
Such policies “endanger the lives of every American”, Mr Sessions said, adding that the White House could withhold or claw back funding from any city that breaks federal migration law.
“The Department of Justice has a duty to enforce our nation’s laws, including our immigration laws,” Mr Sessions said.
“Unfortunately, some states and cities have adopted policies designed to frustrate this enforcement of immigration laws.”
To qualify for any of the US$4.1 billion (Dh15 billion) available in grant money from the central government, cities would have to prove they are complying with certain laws that allow sharing information with immigration officials.
“I urge our nation’s states, cities and counties to consider carefully the harm they are doing to their citizens by refusing to enforce our immigration laws,” he said, alluding to the case of two migrants wanted for murder by federal agents being released by local police.
But city leaders insisted such examples were the exception.
Philadelphia city council member Helen Gym said illegal immigrants were part of the fabric of America.
They were in most danger because of exploitation and discrimination. Some landlords used Mr Trump’s hardline immigration rhetoric to expel immigrant tenants, she said. Some said immigrants were seized by federal immigration agents at their children’s schools and even while testifying at courthouses as victims of other crimes. There are about 11 million immigrants living in the country illegally. There is no evidence that crime rates among immigrants are any higher than among native-born Americans.
The lawyers’ committee for civil rights accused Mr Sessions of trying to create a police state.
Lourdes Rosado, who leads the New York attorney-general’s civil rights bureau, said municipalities had the right to resist what she called immigration overreach by the new White House.
“Mr Sessions makes it sound as if we’re breaking the law,” he said. “But the point is, it’s voluntary whether or not to cooperate.”
Police chiefs in some cities with large migrant populations warned that the policy could poison community relations. “When immigrants can enrol their children in school, access health care and report crimes, our city and county is safer,” said the San Francisco mayor’s spokeswoman, Deirdre Hussey.
“It is shocking that the US attorney-general, the nation’s top law enforcement official, does not agree with this basic principle of public safety.”