Posted on 03/31/2017 12:45:11 PM PDT by Kaslin
This week, Attorney General Jeff Sessions began to put some bite into the Trump administration's bark about so-called sanctuary cities.
On Monday, the attorney general announced that to be eligible for Department of Justice grants, local jurisdictions will have to certify they comply with federal immigration law. Officials in Chicago, New York and Los Angeles – all sanctuary cities – have vowed to fight back, and legal challenges already have begun.
These grants, used to fund training, equipment and other expenses, amount to more than $4 billion per year. But until now, local jurisdictions have been free to ignore immigration laws and detainer orders from federal immigration officials and to return violent illegal immigrants to the streets.
Sessions in on solid ground here. He is carrying out President Trump’s executive order of Jan. 25 on “enhancing public safety in the interior of the United States.”
And he has the law on his side. The relevant statute reads:
“Notwithstanding any other provision of Federal, State, or local law, a Federal, State, or local government entity or official may not prohibit, or in any way restrict, any government entity or official from sending to, or receiving from, the Immigration and Naturalization Service information regarding the citizenship or immigration status, lawful or unlawful, of any individual.”
President Trump made an issue of the Steinle killing during the campaign and even mentioned it in his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland. He promised to clean up the problem. Sessions’ remarks on Monday served as notice the president intends to keep his promise.
The sheriff who released him, Ross Mirkarimi, cannot say the same. Mirkarimi, a founder of the California Green Party who ran for sheriff because he was term-limited out of his seat on the San Francisco City Council, had campaigned on reducing recidivism.
Lopez-Sanchez's re-offending wasn't a matter of if but of when. , rather one of when. Yet, because of a misguided policy that is more concerned with protecting criminal illegal aliens than innocent citizens, Kate Steinle lost her life and the taxpayer again picks up the tab for her killer's prosecution (and his defense) and permanent incarceration. The cycle is perverse.
The policies certainly did not make San Francisco safer for Kate Steinle, nor for thousands of other unnecessary victims across America. They didn’t work out for Mirkarimi either – he was bounced in the next election, 62-38, owing to this and other missteps.
Sanctuary cities want an a la carte option – the freedom to choose which laws they will enforce while continuing to avail themselves of federal grant programs for law enforcement. Indeed, Kevin de Leon, California’s senate president pro tem, blasted Sessions’ comments as “unconstitutional threats and blackmail to prey on anxieties” and defended sanctuary cities as “less dangerous than non-sanctuary cities.”
But sanctuary cities are not safer, agencies control their grant programs, and the president and his cabinet control the agencies. And in this case, the head of the Department of Justice, at the behest of the president, has stepped forward to put some real teeth in immigration enforcement.
That’s not blackmail, and it’s certainly not unconstitutional. It is a step in the right direction and further indication that this president plans to keep his promises about addressing illegal immigration.
I don’t even understand what legal argument they can use to make a case.
Withholding block grants to these areas would be like withholding DOT funds to states that didn’t obey the Federal speed limit.
However, with monies being fungible, these myrmidons would shorten the coffers that support the most vulnerable to make the administration look bad. And the Republicans would allow them to.
Following the shooting death of Kathryn Steinle in San Francisco (a sanctuary city) by an undocumented individual, Hillary Clinton told CNN that "The city made a mistake, not to deport someone that the federal government strongly felt should be deported. I have absolutely no support for a city that ignores the strong evidence that should be acted on."
The following day, her campaign stated: "Hillary Clinton believes that sanctuary cities can help further public safety, and she has defended those policies going back years."
Georgia banned “sanctuary cities” in 2009, and in 2016 went further by requiring local governments, in order to obtain state funding, to certify that they cooperate with federal immigration officials.
Arizona, through SB 1070 (enacted in 2010), requires law enforcement officers to notify federal immigration authorities “if they develop reasonable suspicion that a person they’ve detained or arrested is in the country illegally.”
Tennessee state law bars “local governments or officials from making policies that stop local entities from complying with federal immigration law.” In 2017, legislation proposed in the Tennessee General Assembly would go further, withholding funding from local governments deemed insufficiently cooperative with the federal government.
In Texas no city has formally declared “sanctuary” status, but a few do not fully cooperate with federal immigration authorities and have drawn a negative response from the legislature.Bills seeking to deprive state funding from police departments and municipalities that do not cooperate with federal authorities have been introduced into the Texas Legislature several times. In February 2017, the Texas Senate passed legislation that would require city, county, and college campus law enforcement “to hold an arrested person in custody while U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement looks into his or her immigration status” and deny state grant funding if they fail to do so.
The legislation has the support of Republican Governor Greg Abbott.
The Left doesn’t need a rational argument based in law to bring their stupid lawsuits. All they need do is shop for a fellow traveler judge who will rule in their favor no matter what. It then can take years for appeals to wind their way up through the courts. And we are a society so steeped in respect for judges that even presidents and Congress don’t defy even the worst Judicial rulings. Just look at what happened to President Trump’s EO regarding extreme vetting. The judges have been meekly obeyed.
You’re right. I look at the Ninth Circus and I wonder if those guys are insane.
Start arresting them to!
They don't need a sound legal argument, only a judge appointed by Jimmy Carter or Barack Obama.
I am convinced Sessions is a clueless, gutless, dipshit.
“Political questions” are supposed to be outside the wheelhouse of the judiciary as “nonjusticiable” matters.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/political_question_doctrine
Other grounds are ripeness, mootness and lack of standing.
This is an old policy going back to Marbury v. Madison taught in constitutional law classes. There are sound reasons for it.
The doctrine is grounded in the federal judiciary’s desire to avoid inserting itself into conflicts between branches of the federal government. It is justified by the notion that there exist some questions best resolved through the political process, voters approving or correcting the challenged action by voting for or against those involved in the decision.
If they keep sticking their oar in where it doesn’t belong, Trump may have to start ignoring them.
(The robed ones sure didn’t have a problem finding lack of standing over the last eight years .... )
I’d tell the judge to go F himself.
This course hopes that the money lever will work. What if it doesn’t? What not enforce the Law and arrest those who refuse to do so. These state officials have SWORN DUTY to the LAW!
You’re damned right they do.
Here’s the oath the Oregon judge took, remember the robe that snuck the illegal charged with driving on the roads drunk past ICE?
ORS 1.212 - Oath of office for judges - 2015 Oregon Revised Statutes
https://www.oregonlaws.org › 2015 ORS › Vol. 1 › Chapter 1
I, ____________, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support the Constitution of the United States, and the Constitution of the State of Oregon, and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge the duties of a judge of the ______________ (court), according to the best of my ability.
PING
I prefer just withholding money, not just law enforcement money and the mayor will be notified when the city treasurer comes running into his office yelling the federal money didn’t come today like it should!
that’s so sad...
I’m trapped in ILLEGAL HELL today in my sanctuary city. Live on top floor of apartment building where the roof is being replaced. Awoke to ladders outside my window with non-English speakers clambering up and down —going on all day.
View of Mexican boots and crotches really is revolting, but I have a sick cat I’m not willing to leave alone with the earth-shaking pounding.
Also afraid to open my door, because I don’t want them to see me…a woman living alone, I don’t want them to think I have the slightest interest in them. We had a mugging on the next property a few days ago. City is changing, and not for the better.
Oh, please.
That is a ridiculous assertion Blisken
Sessions is top leaf
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