Mayors from so-called sanctuary cities insisted to Department of Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly in a closed-door meeting Wednesday that they are not breaking federal law.
“We violate no federal or state law,” Austin Mayor Steve Adler told reporters after discussing requests from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to hold illegal immigrants that go unmet by sanctuary cities.
Austin “is one of the safest communities in the country” because of the trust relationship between police and the communities, Adler said — and that is made possible because of its immigration policies.
The meeting came on the heels of Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ threat this week to pull funding for any state and local governments that refuse to comply with federal immigration laws. Those comments follow a Jan. 25 executive order in which the Trump administration threatened local governments that fail to comply with federal authorities and immigration law.
The mayors argue they aren’t breaking federal law because they are not participating in U.S. Immigration and Customs detainer requests. Those detainers — also known as “ICE holds,” “immigration holds,” or “detainer requests” — are simply requests, and there is no legal requirement to comply with an ICE detainer request because they are not warrants and therefore cannot provide a lawful basis for arrest or detention.
Adler reiterated that Austin and Travis County “violate no federal law” by ignoring these requests, and that law enforcement officers are focused on removing criminals from public streets, regardless of immigration status.
New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu reiterated Adler’s comments, and said Kelly told them DHS’s focus is not on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program or deporting the reported 11 million illegal immigrants in the nation, but rather getting “the bad guys off the street […] regardless of immigration status.”
“There’s no city in that room that is in violation of federal law, statute or court order,” Landrieu explained.
The Center for Immigration Studies, a conservative think-tank, has reported that roughly 300 sanctuary jurisdictions ignored more than 17,000 detention requests between January 1, 2014 and September 30, 2015.
Some mayors said they are worried about what exactly being a sanctuary jurisdiction means, as there is no official federal government definition. According to a DHS spokesman, that official definition is coming soon.
“It was made very clear the communities are very interested in having a clear definition,” David Lapan told reporters.
Until that definition is finalized, there will be no stopping or restricting of federal funding from the DHS, he said. There is no deadline or timeline for that definition.
