‘ Sanctuary city’ poses dilemma: Just what is it?
Donald Trump vowed throughout his presidential campaign to punish “sanctuary cities” that fail to cooperate with federal immigration enforcement authorities.
Yet three months into his presidency, the Trump administration still can’t answer a simple question: What exactly is a sanctuary city?
It’s a multimillion- dollar question. The administration wants to withhold federal money from cities, counties and states that it considers “sanctuaries” for undocumented immigrants. The Department of Homeland Security has tried to publicly shame such jurisdic- tions, and the Department of Justice issued letters to nine local governments warning that they may lose federal grants if they’re deemed sanctuaries.
Even so, when a group of mayors met with Attorney General Jeff Sessions and his staff in Washington this week and asked for a definition of the term, they got scant satisfaction.
“They told us, ‘ We haven’t fully flushed that out yet,’ ” said New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu, who received one of the threatening Justice letters. “You can’t accuse us of violating the rules if you haven’t told us what the rules are.”
Even U. S. District Judge William Orrick, who on Tuesday struck down much of Trump’s order to withhold all federal grants from “sanctuary cities,” encouraged the administration to develop regulations or guidance.
When asked for a definition of a sanctuary city Wednesday, the Department of Justice said it could not comment “in light of the pending litigation” before Orrick.
Local governments say they are being coerced into assisting with immigration enforcement — a federal responsibility — and engage in the legally questionable practice of detaining suspects solely to give Immigration and Customs Enforcement ( ICE) agents time to investigate their immigration status.
“Sanctuary city” is a general term often used to describe more than 300 jurisdictions that don’t fully comply with federal immigration efforts. Asked to define it, several administration officials turned to a law that forbids any local policy that orders employees to withhold the immigration status of people in custody.
“That means, according to Congress, a city that prohibits its officials from providing information to federal immigration authorities — a sanctuary city — is violating the law,” read a White House statement on Tuesday.
That doesn’t explain how the Alachua County ( Fla.) Sheriff’s Office ended up on a Homeland Security report. That department has a policy that forbids honoring requests to hold suspects for up to 48 hours for immigration agents. Sheriff’s spokesman Art Forgey said courts have ruled that practice violates the constitutional due process rights of suspects.
But Forgey said his office immediately shares information on every inmate with the federal immigration enforcement agency. “Where they come up with their information and how they come about it, it’s perplexing,” he said.