Amid
protests over President Trump’s executive order aiming to block federal
funding to so-called sanctuary cities, Republican legislators across
the country are moving to deny their own funding to cities that refuse
to comply with federal immigration authorities.
The Texas state
Senate on Wednesday passed a measure to block state funding to cities in
which law enforcement officials disregard federal immigration laws. The
measure would require police agencies to hold anyone in custody until
U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement is able to verify their
immigration status, or risk losing state funding.
Similar
legislation has been introduced in Ohio, Tennessee, Florida, North
Carolina, Iowa, Idaho and Pennsylvania. Other laws are likely to be
introduced in the coming weeks. Many are inspired by Trump’s executive
orders barring refugees and blocking all immigration from seven
Muslim-majority countries.
“What
he’s doing is a great idea. We need to protect Americans, we need to
protect Tennesseans,” state Sen. Mark Green (R), author of his state’s
version of the sanctuary city ban, said in an interview. “We’re going to
take it a step further and enhance what the president is doing and take
state dollars from cities that decide, because they want to, to ignore
ICE detainers.”Civil rights groups that oppose bans on sanctuary
cities say the measures are questionable, and many promised to challenge
the bills in court if they become law.
Local law enforcement
agencies that decline to participate with federal immigration
authorities say their approach helps them build trust with immigrant
communities. If undocumented immigrants are afraid for their own safety,
they are less likely to report crimes or cooperate with local police.
“Many
cities and some states and other municipalities have made the decision
that they’re not going to use their jails, their police officers, their
city resources to do immigration enforcement,” Omar Jadwat, a senior
attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union’s Immigrants Rights
Project, told The Hill last year. “And that is completely within their
rights.”
Local law enforcement agencies are not required to
enforce immigration statutes or to comply with detention requests from
ICE. But the new round of state proposals would use state grant money as
leverage to require local compliance.
Some of the new proposals
go farther by holding local officials accountable for their city’s
actions. In Ohio, a proposal backed by state Treasurer Josh Mandel (R) —
who is challenging Sen.
Sherrod Brown
(D) in 2018 — would charge officials with a fourth-degree felony,
punishable by up to 18 months in prison, if an undocumented immigrant is
charged with a crime.
A Florida proposal would require government
officials to report possible violations to the state attorney general
or risk expulsion from office. The Florida bill would fine local
governments up to $5,000 a day for maintaining sanctuary policies.
North
Carolina’s version would withhold tax revenues from natural gas,
telecommunications and beer and wine sales from any locality that
maintains a sanctuary policy. State lawmakers banned sanctuary cities in
2015, though that measure has no enforcement mechanism.
In Texas,
Gov. Greg Abbott (R) has already moved to block about $1.8 million in
state grants to Travis County, where the local sheriff has implemented a
sanctuary policy.
“I will not tolerate sanctuary city policies
that put the citizens of Texas at risk,” Abbott said in a
statement Thursday. “Elected officials do not get to pick and choose
which laws they will obey.”
Trump’s order has already forced one local government, Miami-Dade County, to drop its sanctuary policy.
Since
the day after Trump won election, Democrat-led states have pursued an
opposite path in hopes of protecting undocumented residents, setting up
likely legal clashes.
California legislators are working on a
package of laws that would create legal defense funds for those swept up
in immigration raids, while Oregon Gov. Kate Brown (D) ordered state
agencies to avoid asking about immigration statuses of those with whom
they come into contact.
“In California, immigrants are an integral
part of who we are and what we’ve become,” Gov. Jerry Brown (D) told
legislators in his state of the state address last month. “We will
defend everybody, every man, woman and child, who has come here for a
better life and has contributed to the well-being of our state.”
There
is no legal definition of a sanctuary city, county or state. But
hundreds of jurisdictions across the country — including the entire
states of California, Connecticut, New Mexico and Colorado — label
themselves as such.
Washington, D.C.; Arlington, Va.;
Philadelphia; New York City; Boston; Baltimore; New Orleans and other
major cities have all adopted sanctuary policies.