You’ve probably heard that sanctuary city policies foster trust between police and immigrants. Sanctuary cities are therefore safe cities.
This is the official sanctuary city lie. It stems from another falsehood, an urban myth fueled by activists, that Immigration & Customs Enforcement routinely targets otherwise law-abiding illegal immigrants in massive sweeps. Although the Trump administration has announced that anyone illegally present is subject to deportation, a legal truism, the announcement directs that agents focus on criminal illegal immigrants.
Of ICE’s 2018 “at large” arrests, 29,549 involved individuals convicted or charged with a crime, whereas only 10,987 — less than 1% of the estimated 11.3 million illegal immigrants — were “other immigration violator[s],” many of whom had been deported previously or failed to leave when ordered to do so.
Alas, “The Deportation Machine Obama Built for Trump,” as imagined by The Nation, remains geared to removing criminal illegal immigrants and more flagrant immigration law violators.
That said, sanctuary cities don’t merely decline active immigration enforcement roles like, for example, that afforded by the 287(g) program, under which local officials working under federal supervision perform certain immigration functions.
Rather, by ignoring ICE requests to hold suspected illegal immigrants already arrested on local criminal charges so that agents can take custody, refusing to tell ICE when they’ll be released, and preventing agents from interviewing inmates, sanctuary cities build walls to protect criminals from deportation.
And some of those criminals go on to harm others. Salvadorian national Carlos Eduardo Arevalo Carranza is a recent example.
The previously deported felon was arrested in late March for beating, bludgeoning, and stabbing Bambi Larson to death in the bedroom of her South San Jose, Calif. home. She was found by her son who, with his mother’s coworker, had checked on her after she didn’t show up at work. It appears Ms. Larson didn’t know Carranza, who evidently stalked her before breaking into her house and killing her.
Bemoaning “a senseless act” that “very well may have been preventable,” Santa Clara County Sheriff Laurie Smith said that Carranza, whose DNA was found at the scene, “is a violent predator who should have remained in custody until officials with ICE had the appropriate time to evaluate his immigration status.”
Sheriff Smith refers to the fact that Carranza had been a regular guest of Santa Clara and Los Angeles County jails. But under those counties’ sanctuary policies, they dutifully ignored ICE requests to hold Carranza and provide advance notice of his release. And they now have blood on their hands.
San Jose Police Chief Eddie Garcia condemned sanctuary policies that “shield admitted gangsters or violent criminals,” comments echoed by The San Jose Police Officers Association.
And that brings up another lie — that law enforcement professionals overwhelmingly back sanctuary policies. Most do not, but pro-sanctuary city outfits do. Take, for example, the Police Executive Research Foundation, a liberal advocacy group that gets media praise and nice speaking gigs for its director, Chuck Wexler. His L.A. Times op-ed supporting sanctuary cities can be found here.
Wexler argues that without sanctuary policies, illegal immigrants wouldn’t help police nab bad guys. The answer to that is for law enforcement not to protect criminals, but rather to send a clear message that if you’re an innocent victim or witness, your immigration status won’t be checked.
This was the default policy in most places before liberals launched their sanctuary city crusade during the Obama years.
Ironically, sanctuary policies themselves stoke fear. As ICE Deputy Executive Associate Director Nathalia Asher explains in this Department of Justice/ICE panel presentation (about 26 and 46 minutes in) sanctuary policies force ICE to “redirect [its] resources to street work,” where agents will oftentimes encounter non-targeted immigrants. It’s also more dangerous than a controlled jail environment where a criminal can be handed over.
Returning to Larson’s murder, Santa Clara County Counsel James Williams audaciously tried to pin the blame on ICE, saying that agents should have previously obtained judicial warrants for Carranza.
And this is yet another sanctuary city lie, perhaps the most important of the jurisprudential sort. This is that ICE detainers and administrative warrants are issued by the agency itself and not a court, making them constitutionally deficient. But as the Supreme Court noted in Abel v. U.S., a 1960 case, “[s]tatutes providing for deportation have ordinarily authorized the arrest of deportable aliens by order of an executive official”. (My emphasis).
This was acknowledged last year by the Fifth Circuit in City of El Cenizo v. Texas, rejecting an American Civil Liberties Union challenge to a Texas law preventing local sanctuary city policies.
The requirement that ICE show up with a federal criminal warrant in every case needlessly endangers the public. An MS-13 gang member arrested by Chicago police may post bail well before ICE gets a U.S. Attorney to prepare a criminal warrant, which then must be filed with the court and heard by a judge. And this won’t work at all with a repeat criminal who has overstayed a visa, because that isn’t a federal crime.
Of course, there’s no conceivable issue with merely telling ICE when someone is going to be released, allowing agents to be waiting outside with cuffs. Indeed, the detainers lodged against Carranza during his 2016 and 2017 jail stints requested notice. The response? Crickets.
Sanctuary city policies put political correctness over public safety, and they get people killed.
Ken Sondik is an attorney in Zionsville, Indiana.
