Washington Times
By Stephen Dinan
August 6, 2015
Louisiana
Gov. Bobby Jindal has said mayors who run sanctuary cities should be
held criminally liable — but he did not stop Orleans Parish, in his own
state, from becoming
a sanctuary itself in 2013.
He
is one of at least four Republican governors running for president next
year whose states have had cities and counties declare “sanctuary”
during their tenure, without
suffering the dire consequences the candidates now say the federal
government should bring to bear on recalcitrant jurisdictions.
Former
Texas Gov. Rick Perry, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and New Jersey Gov.
Chris Christie also have had counties or cities embrace the sanctuary
movement on their watch.
Four jurisdictions announced policies of noncooperation during Mr.
Christie’s tenure alone, according to data compiled by federal
immigration authorities.
More
than a decade after President George W. Bush tried to stop illegal
immigration, the problem remains thorny for Republicans, both policywise
and with fickle voters.
The
issue is likely to be on prominent display Thursday when Republican
candidates square off in Cleveland for the first official debate of the
primary season. The affair
is likely to be dominated by disagreements over how to handle border
security, interior enforcement and the estimated 11.5 million illegal
immigrants living in the shadows of the U.S.
“Immigration’s
going to be a central topic,” said Frank Sharry, executive director of
America’s Voice, an immigrant rights advocacy group and a close tracker
of Republican
politicians’ stances on the issue. “It’s going to be one of the few
issues that genuinely divides them. And it’s going to be interesting to
see if the moderators let people get away with sand-in-your-face sound
bites.”
Immigrant
rights groups are planning debate-watching parties to draw attention to
the issue. NumbersUSA, which demands stricter limits on immigration,
announced plans
to run an ad urging the candidates to rein in legal immigration, which
adds about 1 million permanent residents to the country every year.
Other
hot topics are likely to be President Obama’s deal to try to delay
Iran’s nuclear ambitions, and continued federal funding for Planned
Parenthood, which has been
rocked by a series of videos seemingly showing employees negotiating
the sale of tissue taken from aborted fetuses.
Those issues are likely to show agreement, but immigration could reveal deep divisions within the field.
Much
of that attention likely will go to Donald Trump, the billionaire
businessman who in announcing his campaign said he would secure the
southern border and blamed Mexico
for sending rapists and other criminals to the U.S. — igniting
denunciations from some fellow candidates and praise from others.
“What
I’m looking for is to see how many of them recognize that part of
Trump’s rise in the polls seems to have to do with his stance on
immigration — whether they recognize
how powerful that issue could be for them,” said Jessica Vaughan,
policy studies director at the Center for Immigration Studies, which
supports a crackdown.
Mr.
Trump doubled down on his comments after a horrific killing July 1 in
San Francisco, where 32-year-old Kathryn Steinle was shot while walking
with her father. The
man accused of the slaying was an illegal immigrant who had been
released from custody recently under the county sheriff’s sanctuary
policy prohibiting cooperation with federal immigration authorities.
After the killing, most in the Republican field demanded that the federal government crack down on sanctuary cities.
Mr.
Jindal this week called for mayors to be held criminally liable and
said San Francisco officials in particular were complicit in Steinle’s
death.
But
on Mr. Jindal’s watch, Orleans Parish, which includes downtown New
Orleans, limited its cooperation with U.S. Immigration and Customs
Enforcement, saying it would
hold only illegal immigrants charged with murder, aggravated rape,
kidnapping, treason or armed robbery, according to ICE.
Jindal
pokeswoman Shannon Dirmann said her boss tried to ramp up enforcement
by state police, who do cooperate with ICE and who will proactively try
to verify the immigration
status of noncitizens with whom they come into contact in
investigations.
“Sanctuary
city policies like those in New Orleans make New Orleans’ officials
partners in crime with illegal aliens who commit crimes there. Our
nation is a country of
laws. Individuals do not get to pick and choose which laws they will
follow, and neither do elected officials,” Ms. Dirmann said.
“Gov.
Jindal released a plan that will hit these lawless city leaders where
it hurts by holding them directly accountable for crimes committed by
illegal immigrants. If
on their watch, an illegal immigrant breaks the law, we will count
sanctuary city leaders as accessories and force them to pay for these
crimes.”
Travis
County, home to the Texas state Capitol, became a sanctuary in June
2014. It refused to honor requests to hold illegal immigrants — known as
detainers — unless
authorities had accompanying criminal charges, according to ICE.
Mr.
Perry’s campaign said he tried to crack down on sanctuaries by making
it an issue in 2011, just as immigration was heating up as a hot
national topic and Arizona was
testing the limits of state enforcement. Mr. Perry asked the state
Legislature to follow Arizona’s lead.
That effort fell short, and the issue dropped off the radar in Texas, according to local news reports.
Lucy
Nashed, a spokeswoman for Mr. Perry, said he now wants to revoke
federal prison and jail and homeland security grants for jurisdictions
that refuse to cooperate with
federal immigration authorities and would punish states by subtracting a
“proportional amount” from their funds, too.
In
Wisconsin, Milwaukee became a sanctuary city in 2012, according to ICE.
That was in Mr. Walker’s second year as governor — just after he
survived a recall election.
Mr.
Walker’s campaign said Wisconsin did try to cooperate on deportations
and that the governor signed an agreement in 2011 to join Secure
Communities, the Obama administration’s
program to cull prisons and jails looking for illegal immigrants to
deport.
Secure
Communities, which the administration was trying to implement
nationwide, helped Mr. Obama set deportation records in 2012. But
immigrant rights groups put immense
political pressure on the president, and he canceled the program in
November. Mr. Obama now is trying to replace Secure Communities with a
program that would deport far fewer illegal immigrants.
Ohio,
where Thursday’s debate is set and where Gov. John Kasich has been in
office since 2011, does not have any sanctuary cities listed by ICE.
Florida and New York do,
but the jurisdictions became sanctuaries after Jeb Bush and George E.
Pataki left the governor’s offices in those respective states.
In New Jersey, three counties and Newark have embraced sanctuary policies during Mr. Christie’s tenure.
Speaking
with Fox News last month, Mr. Christie said the country cannot allow
sanctuary cities but added that it was the job of the federal
government, not the state,
to police immigration.
“We can’t prevent it on the state level. This has to be a federal solution,” he said.
Ms.
Vaughan, at the Center for Immigration Studies, said governors do have
fewer tools but hold the power of persuasion to argue against
sanctuaries and to point out to
residents the dangers of releasing potentially dangerous immigrants.
“I
wouldn’t say there’s nothing the governors could have done, but the
real missed opportunity was to discourage them,” she said.
At
the federal level, a president does have more power, she said. For
example, she said, the administration could immediately withhold
reimbursement funding for state
and local prisons and jails that hold illegal immigrants.
Defenders
argue that sanctuary cities promote public safety because they make
immigrants — both legal and illegal — more willing to report other
crimes, particularly when
they are victims.
Mr.
Obama has threatened to veto any legislation from Congress that would
crack down on sanctuary cities, saying he prefers the carrot approach to
the stick.
That
stance is also playing out in the Democratic presidential campaign,
where former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley has defended sanctuaries and
as governor defended sanctuary
jurisdictions in his state.
Mr.
Sharry said he expects all Republicans to campaign against sanctuary
cities and Democrats to defend them by arguing that they protect against
ill-advised deportations.
Both
stances are likely to be popular with the two parties’ bases, but Mr.
Sharry said how the issue plays out in the general election depends on
who the Republican nominee
is. That, he said, will determine whether Republicans make any headway
with Hispanic voters.
“Is
it a Jeb Bush or is it a Scott Walker? They’ll both be opposed to
cities having the ability to set limits, but I suspect Scott Walker
would emphasize it a lot more,”
he said.
For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com
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