Broken system
In the swirl of President Trump’s self-created missteps, don’t overlook what he’s getting done. One example is an immigration policy that is breaking up families and threatening cities that want to protect these people from deeply unfair federal rules.
Amid tears and hugs, an Oakland family was pulled apart this week by an inflexible immigration system, obliging the parents and one child to leave while three daughters remained here. The parents didn’t have legal status despite years of effort and the intercession of Sen. Dianne Feinstein.
The message is chilling and destructive. After spending decades creating a new life and attempting to win legal status, cancer nurse Maria Mendoza-Sanchez, truck driver Eusebio Sanchez and their son were deported via a red-eye flight to Mexico City while their high school- and college-age daughters stayed behind. The divided family is a harsh symbol of the rigid enforcement spawned by Trump.
The president’s avowed goals of halting terrorists, drug dealers and criminals from entry is mocked by the treatment of this deserving, hardworking family. It’s an insult to American ideals of fairness.
No less a shame is Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ obsession with sanctuary city laws that bar local law enforcement from becoming an extension of border control authorities. He’s going beyond denouncing the local protections by trying to extort cooperation by cutting off federal police grants.
That stance was rebuked by a court injunction earlier this year, but Sessions has recrafted his dictum, which could block $28.3 million in California law enforcement grants to cities and counties. He’s pushing it out broadly, by suggesting Chicago’s refusal to disown sanctuary protections is behind the city’s soaring homicide rate.
His stance isn’t going unchallenged. California Attorney General Xavier Becerra is following a lawsuit by San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera to oppose the plan.
The legal standoff and the broken Oakland family are two sides of the same problem. The country needs a better, fairer immigration system, not one dominated by hard rules pushed by the Trump team.