Intent of county sanctuary decision needs real action behind it
Places of safety are difficult to find for the innocents of this world.
Refugees escaping horrible conditions have sailed the Atlantic Ocean, the Pacific and walked across land masses seeking this nation’s sanctuary. Most of our citizens can trace lineages to some calamity in their original homeland.
The Marin Independent Journal headline “Marin won’t be ‘sanctuary’ county” on Sept. 17 is truly a bottom-line headline. Though the intent of the board of supervisors is clearly to provide services and care for those in need, regardless of immigration status, those words got to the heart of the matter.
Intent and goodwill are not enough to wipe away the headline that may well be a “need not apply” banner from days gone by. And the frustration for many is that we are just a few acts away from providing the safety and sanctuary pledges sought.
Marin County health and social services agencies have made clear they are open to all. In this pandemic such a declaration is necessary to ensure the hardest hit Latino communities continue to test, to work with community agencies to find solutions to health and economic hardship and to believe those in power listen to the most vulnerable.
In its all-encompassing resolution, the board of supervisors sought to affirm, cajole and motivate. But such intent is lost when the actions to carry out the intent of the resolution are acknowledged to be in the unwavering hands of another.
The board of supervisors knew they would be roundly criticized by activist group
ICE Out of Marin, whose mantra is a non-negotiable demand regarding the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, which it sees as central to true concern for those whom the county wants desperately to help. And the intensity of the group’s plea is commensurate to their proximity to those being harmed.
The county supervisors sought to educate the public to the legal handcuffed position they are in. Sheriffs in California have enormous discretion as to how they carry out their duties. They are beholden to the citizens who elect them and even to those who disagree with them. Elections matter and Marin Sheriff Robert Doyle has repeatedly faced the voters and been reelected.
Sheriffs have the discretion to change course in the implementation of their duties and they can lead with solutions that forge futures and redefine how community peace is maintained, how relations between the citizenry and law enforcement can be improved, and how care for the least results in respect for all.
If the Board of Supervisors’ immigrant-affirming resolution is to have a spirit that allows it to be more than paper on a shelf, we need the sheriff to act as he has before. Even Doyle acknowledges that ICE activity has lessened at the jail, undocumented people are being released at the front door like all others, and notifications have been limited.
Now, I and others ask that Doyle take the further few steps of disassociating the name of the Marin County Sheriff’s Office with the policies of an immigration force that is taking people into their custody and letting them languish in detention facilities with COVID-19. It has even been recently reported that ICE may have been carrying out operations that caused women to lose their right to give birth.
The exercise of discretion in government is at the crux of how history judges this moment. I know Doyle. We have agreed on some things and disagreed on others. I wish for history to judge him well.
I ask him to turn the urgings of the Board of Supervisors into a humble exercise of discretion that adheres to the full intent and spirit of Senate Bill 54 and imprints an indelible lesson in Marin County history for others to follow.
Sheriffs have the discretion to change course in the implementation of their duties and they can lead with solutions that forge futures and redefine how community peace is maintained, how relations between the citizenry and law enforcement can be improved, and how care for the least results in respect for all.