Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Kaine attacked Donald Trump of making an issue out of “phantom sanctuary cities,” and said he believes local law enforcement does a better job policing communities than Trump would do.
“When Donald Trump kind of goes after these phantom sanctuary cities and talks about how bad they are, basically what he’s going after is police chiefs,” Kaine said on CNN. “And I trust police chiefs in terms of knowing what should be done to keep their communities safer and police departments and mayors a lot more than I trust Donald Trump.”
The CNN host asked why Kaine was calling sanctuary cities “phantom,” as its clear that some cities and other local jurisdictions refuse to cooperate with federal authorities on immigration matters. The result is “sanctuary cities,” which Republicans have said give illegal immigrants a safe space to live, free from the threat of deportation.
Kaine didn’t explain why he called them “phantom sanctuary cities,” but his answer seemed to acknowledge that sanctuary cities do exist.
“Let me give you an example from when I was governor,” Kaine said. “There was a program back then where some cities were joining in a program with ICE to essentially be deputized to do the work of the immigration service. My law enforcement officials, who are tough law enforcement people, came to me and said do not do this, because if the immigrant community starts to sees us as immigration officials, they won’t call and complain about crimes in their neighborhood, they won’t be witnesses in cases.”
The Trump team fired back soon after over the terminology. Campaign manager Kellyanne Conway argued that Kaine was insulting the families who have been victims of sanctuary cities.
Kaine insults victims’ families – calls sanctuary cities “phantom.” https://t.co/oq4QwigjXC
— Kellyanne Conway (@KellyannePolls) September 1, 2016
