Santa Fe Mayor gets a ‘Half True’ rating on the Truth-O-Meter

Mayor Javier Gonzales recently took on the role of de facto national spokesman for “sanctuary cities,” defending the immigrantfriendly policies of Santa Fe and other local jurisdictions around the country in a back-toback-to-back series of interviews on Fox News, CNN and NPR.

When he went up against Fox’s Megyn Kelly and was asked, among other things, about highprofile murders committed by undocumented immigrants in sanctuary cities, he made this statement:

“Study after study have shown that sanctuary cities do not lead to an increase in crime because of the presence of people who are undocumented.”

Within a couple of days of that interview, I asked the City Hall staff for information to support that assertion.

So did Politifact, the Pulitzer Prize-winning project of the Tampa Bay Times that fact-checks statements by politicians, commentators, bloggers and others, and ranks them on its “TruthO-Meter” scale. There are assorted rankings that span the gray areas between true and false. For the most outrageous lies, Politifact’s meter arrow points to “Pants on Fire.”

Politifact, in its assessment of Gonzales’ statement published online, put the comment smack in the middle of the false-to-true scale. Essentially, Politifact said the mayor in fact has data and research on his side, but it’s “not conclusive or as extensive as he described.”

Politifact did note a recent academic study that found sanctuary policies have no effect on crime rates, other studies that found a reduction of crime from cooperation between police and