Opinion of "sanctuary cities"?

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

This has never been polled here, despite the GOP's obsession with the topic this cycle.

[bedstuy]

I'm not totally aware of the problem here.

The local police shouldn't enforce immigration laws, ICE and the Border Patrol should.  If the local police tries to enforce immigration laws, you create a huge population who can't report anything to the police.  That just isn't safe. 

[TNF]

Freedom cities of course

[windjammer]

I don't even know what it is.

[OSR stands with Israel]

HC

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

End 'em.

[Zioneer]

I'm not totally aware of the problem here.

The local police shouldn't enforce immigration laws, ICE and the Border Patrol should.  If the local police tries to enforce immigration laws, you create a huge population who can't report anything to the police.  That just isn't safe. 

[Green Line]

Horrible and dangerous

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

I don't even know what it is.

They are local municipalities (including the vast majority of the bigger cities in the U.S.) where the police are not allowed to inquire about resident's immigration status.

[All Along The Watchtower]

Freedom Cities (normal, not a heartless xenophobe)

[Ebowed]

An obviously humane response to a "horrible and dangerous" set of policies.

[Bigby]

HC.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     Misguided efforts led by folks who put ideology before reason.

[Stand With Israel. Crush Hamas]

We live in a nation of laws. The federal government is the one who has the responsibility to enforce our immigration laws, and the cities owe their cooperation. If they're actively withholding information, they should be taken to federal court.

[PJ]

Cities dealing with immigration is obviously not ideal, but I oppose any attempt to end them with federal immigration law being what it is. FCs

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

I don't even know what it is.

They are cities where there is a policy intended to limit local law enforcement helping federal officials to enforce immigration rules, the details differing widely depending on the locality with the policy.  They become a target when an illegal immigrant commits a crime against someone in one of these places.   

In general, local police should not be enforcing immigration law, and should focus instead on building trust in communities with large numbers of undocumented immigrants.  SF may go too far in that it does not hold people for the feds even when there is a previous felony conviction, though it may be that they find this is necessary in general in order to get cooperation.  Overall there is no correlation suggesting that sanctuary city policies lead to higher crime.

[RFayette]

We live in a nation of laws. The federal government is the one who has the responsibility to enforce our immigration laws, and the cities owe their cooperation. If they're actively withholding information, they should be taken to federal court.

Agreed, though I favor some form of amnesty for immigrants who are already here, but in the future, sanctuary cities have got to go.

[ElectionsGuy]

As a libertarian, I see it as a local government acting in its own right. I view it just like I view Colorado's marijuana status compared to the federal government. Obviously, that should not get away from local authorities refusing to enforce the law against them shall they commit crimes. If an illegal immigrant were to commit a violent act, he/she should be either deported (preferably) or processed through the criminal justice system like everyone else. But as I understand it, it just prohibits local police from deporting and stopping people solely because of immigration status, so that shouldn't be an issue. Since I agree immigration is a national issue, it should be enforced by the federal government, and local governments should be able to enforce the law as they see fit. They're not freedom cities, but not terrible either just on this characteristic (though many of them that happen to be sanctuary are horrible).

If we had a secure border and a sane immigration system, we wouldn't have to talk about this. And that's the most important thing imo

A city that willingly becomes third world. A joke of a city.

Do you even know what this means? Calling cities with more illegal immigrants third world is outlandish and insulting to actual 'third-world' countries (though I don't use the term myself, as its outdated).

[Intell]

While I have sympathy for local governments, it is their job to follow the law, and we can't allow all illegals into one country, so i guess HP, but my view is more nuanced then that.

[SillyAmerican]

The idea of a city making laws that supercede those of the federal and state government? It's completely ludicrous, and must be stopped. We'll see what happens with Governor Abbott's efforts in Texas.

[Attorney General, LGC Speaker, and Former PPT Dwarven Dragon]

We live in a nation of laws. The federal government is the one who has the responsibility to enforce our immigration laws, and the cities owe their cooperation. If they're actively withholding information, they should be taken to federal court.

Agreed, though I favor some form of amnesty for immigrants who are already here, but in the future, sanctuary cities have got to go.

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

It depends on the extent to which it is taken. Cities who say, in effect, "hey, immigration is governed by federal law, so we'll let the feds handle this," then they are merely respecting the Constitutional separation of powers¹. Actively obstructing federal attempts to enforce the law is another matter, however, is a clear violation of the Constitution and should be treated as such.

For the record, I think current immigration statute is backwards and immoral and hope that the next president will be able to make headway on this issue: however, government officials cannot simply ignore the laws with which they disagree. I opposed Kim Davis' actions on the same grounds, and it would be hypocritical to take the opposite stance now.



¹ I'm sure the conservatives here will disagree with me vhemently on this, but there is a precedent for leaving the enforcement of federal laws to the federal government. During Prohibition, enforcement of the Volstead Act was largely seen as a federal responsibility: Ken Burns argues that the 18th Amendment failed in part because it made enforcement of anti-liquor laws a federal responsibility, and thus took local officials - many of whom had been successfully enforcing state-level prohibition laws for years - off the beat.

[mencken]

Sanctuary cities are fine, just so long as the cities internalize the cost of housing illegal migrants. There is a double standard here though: Arizona gets yelled at by the Justice Department and the Supreme Court for taking efforts at the local level to enforce immigration law, but San Francisco does not get any reprimand for flouting the law.

[SillyAmerican]

Sanctuary cities are fine, just so long as the cities internalize the cost of housing illegal migrants. There is a double standard here though: Arizona gets yelled at by the Justice Department and the Supreme Court for taking efforts at the local level to enforce immigration law, but San Francisco does not get any reprimand for flouting the law.

How is it that sanctuary cities are "fine"? Such a city is basically saying "No need to bother following federal or state statutes here; we know the correct way of doing things, so within our area, this is what goes." What next? We start allowing cities to print their own money? Issue their own passports? If not, why not? The principle is exactly the same, at least from where I'm sitting; immigration is a federal issue, and we have federal laws on the books which specify how that is handled. If people don't like those laws, they should go ahead and work to get them changed, but they don't get to cherry pick which laws they find acceptable and which ones they don't. It's a bad idea, no matter what the People's Republic of San Francisco might think, and if you wanna know why it's a bad idea, just ask Jim Steinle.

[mencken]

Sanctuary cities are fine, just so long as the cities internalize the cost of housing illegal migrants. There is a double standard here though: Arizona gets yelled at by the Justice Department and the Supreme Court for taking efforts at the local level to enforce immigration law, but San Francisco does not get any reprimand for flouting the law.

How is it that sanctuary cities are "fine"? Such a city is basically saying "No need to bother following federal or state statutes here; we know the correct way of doing things, so within our area, this is what goes." What next? We start allowing cities to print their own money? Issue their own passports? If not, why not? The principle is exactly the same, at least from where I'm sitting; immigration is a federal issue, and we have federal laws on the books which specify how that is handled. If people don't like those laws, they should go ahead and work to get them changed, but they don't get to cherry pick which laws they find acceptable and which ones they don't. It's a bad idea, no matter what the People's Republic of San Francisco might think, and if you wanna know why it's a bad idea, just ask Jim Steinle.

I think this is more of a semantic argument than anything. You don't think sanctuary cities should be permitted at all, I don't think they should be permitted so long as these cities are getting federal money for health care, housing, education, welfare, police, etc.

And, again, I believe that federalism is the immigration restrictionist's ally in this situation, so long as it is applied consistently. Let the urban hellholes recklessly endanger their citizens at their own expense, and let the rest of the country enact policies to defend themselves, since the federal government clearly has no desire to do so. (And I hope that none of the former would complain that none of the latter are participating in Obamacare or other social engineering schemes)