California Free Press

WHY WE NEED SANCTUARY STATES

 by Robert Reich

 

 

Saturday, October 7, 2017

California lawmakers have just passed “sanctuary state” legislation – the first state since Oregon, which 30 years ago passed a law preventing state agencies from targeting undocumented immigrants solely because of their illegal status. 

Other states should follow California’s and Oregon’s lead. 

Since January, when Attorney General Jeff Sessions ordered immigration authorities to target “public safety” threats, federal arrests of undocumented immigrants have increased by over 37 percent. California is home to an estimated 2.3 million unauthorized immigrants. 

California’s law limits the authority of state and local law enforcers to communicate with federal immigration authorities, and prevents officers from questioning or holding people depending on their immigration status or immigration violations. But it still allows federal immigration authorities to enter county jails to question immigrants, and allow police and sheriffs to share information on people who have been convicted of serious crimes.

This is a fair balance. Sanctuary protections like these make sense because:

1. Under them, undocumented immigrants are more likely to come forth with information about crime when doing so won’t put them at risk of deportation. This improves public safety and builds trusts with law enforcement. 

2. By contrast, turning state and local police into immigration agents invites more crime because it diverts limited time and resources to rounding up undocumented immigrants.

3. Undocumented immigrants commit crimes at a lower rate than native-born citizens, so it makes even less sense for local and state police to spend their precious time and resources rounding them up.

4. A dragnet aimed at finding and deporting all of America’s 11 million unauthorized immigrants is cruel, costly, and contemptible. It turns this country into more of a police state, breaks up families, and hurts the economy. 

We must resist Jeff Sessions and his dragnet. Help make your state a sanctuary. 

California Adopts 'Sanctuary State' Immigration Law in Snub to Trump

New legislation will stop police from cooperating with federal immigration authorities.

By Sam Levin / The Guardian

October 6, 2017, 11:11 AM GMT

 

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Photo Credit: Sheila Fitzgerald / Shutterstock

California has adopted the most expansive “sanctuary state” law in the US with the goal of obstructing Donald Trump’s deportation agenda by prohibiting police in the country’s most populous state from cooperating with federal immigration authorities.

The landmark bill, signed into law on Thursday, restricts police from questioning people about their citizenship status and detaining foreign-born residents on immigration violations. The law, which also prohibits police from transferring certain inmates to immigration authorities, could lead to a major legal showdown between the White House and California and is the latest example of the liberal Golden State creating roadblocks to Trump policies.

The legislation is more far-reaching than an existing sanctuary state policy in Oregon and could help shield immigrants from aggressive deportation efforts in a state home to more than two million undocumented people, nearly a quarter of all unauthorized immigrants living in the US.

The California Values Act builds on the sanctuary city policies that Trump aggressively targeted during his 2016 campaign and which exist in hundreds of municipalities. Studies have challenged Trump’s claims that sanctuary jurisdictions attract crime; some research suggests cities with sanctuary policies have significantly lower crime rates than comparable municipalities that allow local police to enforce immigration laws.

Some liberal cities, such as San Francisco, have sued the Trump administration over his threats to withhold federal public safety grant money as a punishment. Those cities have argued that when police stay out of immigration enforcement, undocumented people are more likely to report crimes and work with police.

Even before California’s governor, Jerry Brown, signed the new law, the bill was the subject of widespread attacks by the Trump administration and conservatives across the country. The US attorney general, Jeff Sessions, recently called the bill “unconscionable” and said it “risks the safety of good law enforcement officers and the safety of the neighborhoods that need their protection the most”.