Sanctuary Cities Face Aid Cuts as Justice Dept. Tightens Screws

[SteveRogers]

Setting Immigration policy  though is a power the  constitution strictly delegated to the federal goverment. So cities and states can't take this issue into their own hands .

The 10th amendment says : any power not delegated to the fedreal goverment by the constitution or not prohibited by the constitution can be used by the states or the people .

Immigration policy though is a power delegated to the fedreal government which means the states cannot take the issue in their own hands.

Yes, the constitution gives the federal government the sole authority to set immigration policy. And yet it is also a bedrock principle of constitutional law that the federal government may not commandeer state authorities by ordering them to enforce federal law. There is nothing unconstitutional about local government telling the Feds that they refuse to do their jobs for them.

[SteveRogers]

So officials will still be able to withhold information from the feds, but the local authorities can't force them to?

The statute cited by the Justice Department has very little to do with how most so-called sanctuary city policies actually operate. If the local Sheriff's Department doesn't know the immigration status of every inmate in the County Jail, then they aren't withholding "information regarding the citizenship or immigration status, lawful or unlawful, of any individual." 

[SteveRogers]

So officials will still be able to withhold information from the feds, but the local authorities can't force them to?

The statute cited by the Justice Department has very little to do with how most so-called sanctuary city policies actually operate. If the local Sheriff's Department doesn't know the immigration status of every inmate in the County Jail, then they aren't withholding "information regarding the citizenship or immigration status, lawful or unlawful, of any individual." 

Does that mean the Justice Dept probably won't be able to do anything that would hold up in Court based on this law?

Depends. I don't claim to know whether or not any of these cities have ever violated that statute. Putting that particular condition on the grants may be all well and good; I just don't think it actually applies to most of the identified sanctuary cities Sessions singled out. I get the sense that the Trump administration wants to stretch that statute into a place that it doesn't fit.

To clarify, 8 U.S.C. § 1373 states the following:

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This doesn't really apply to the issues at the core of the sanctuary cities debate. The way  the system works is something like this:
1. Local police arrest someone and book them into jail. Their fingerprints are taken, and those fingerprints are shared with the feds.
2. ICE gets that fingerprint data and flags an individual who ICE suspects is an illegal immigrant.
3. At this point ICE sends a request to the local jail stating that it has reason to believe that a particular inmate is an illegal inmate and requesting one of two things. ICE either:

• Asks that the local jail continue to detain the inmate after the state case is disposed of so that ICE may come check them out and potentially take custody of the inmate and deport them, or
• Asks that the local jail inform ICE of when and where said inmate is going to be released so that ICE may come pick them up as soon as they step out of the jail

A city gets labeled a sanctuary city when, as a policy, the city refuses to comply with some of those requests from ICE. So yes, if the city is refusing to comply with the latter form of ICE request, then it is withholding information from ICE, but NOT information "regarding the citizenship or immigration status" of the inmate, in other words NOT the information covered under 8 U.S.C. § 1373. (And of course, complying with the first sort of ICE request, the actual detainer request, is likely in many cases unconstitutional. And if ICE detainer requests are unconstitutional, then an order conditioning grants on compliance with ICE detainer requests will also be struck down as unconstitutional.