Sanctuary Cities: Debunking the Myth
By Lynn Tramonte
Texas Insider Report: AUSTIN Texas There is much confusion about the term Sanctuary City". More than 70 cities & states across the country have adopted policies that prevent police agencies from asking community residents who have not been arrested to prove their legal immigration status. The term Sanctuary City" is often used derisively by immigration opponents to blast what are best described as community policing policies. Critics claim that these cities & states provide sanctuary" to undocumented immigrants but research shows that the opposite is true.
In fact community policing policies are about providing public safety services not sanctuary to both immigrant residents and the entire community.
Crime experts including hundreds of local police officers have found that cities with community policing policies continue to work closely with DHS and have built bridges to immigrant communities that have improved their ability to fight crime and protect the entire community.
Historically the federal government has enforced civil immigration law and state and local police have focused on enforcing criminal law. However propelled by increased frustration with the nations broken immigration system and by growing anti-immigrant sentiment politicians demands for state and local police to take on an increased role in immigration enforcement have grown exponentially.
This culminated in the passage of
Arizonas notorious SB1070 law in 2010 which would turn Arizona state and local police officers into deportation agents.
Laws like SB1070 are not only unnecessary they are dangerous.
State and local police already have the authority to arrest anyone suspected of criminal activity including non-citizens and police regularly work with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to identify foreign-born criminals detain them and transport them for eventual deportation. However most police do
not arrest immigrants solely for being undocumented.
Despite the media attention Sheriff Joe Arpaio in Arizona has garnered for treating undocumented immigrants like criminals most state and local police do not want to be put in the position of identifying non-criminal immigrants for
deportation because they believe doing so would make it more difficult for them to earn the trust of immigrant residents and protect the entire community from criminals.
In fact their concerns about the impact of laws like Arizonas SB1070 have been a key reason that similar measures have failed to advance in states like Colorado and South Dakota.
These policies do allow state and local police to report foreign-born criminals to DHS.
Based on the tenets of community policing these policies make it safe for immigrant crime victims and witnesses to report criminals to the police and help put them behind bars.
This report concludes that:
- Sanctuary city" is not an accurate term for cities with community policing policies. The police who rely upon community policing policies do not provide sanctuary" to undocumented immigrantsthey already have the authority to arrest criminals regardless of immigration status and they already work with DHS to identify immigrant criminals. The cities and states that actively encourage police to enforce civil immigration laws are the real sanctuaries" for criminals because they are alienating a segment of the community that experiences crime but is afraid to report it.
- State and local police departments around the country support community policing policies because they help immigrants work with the police to put criminals behind bars.
- Crime experts as well as advocates for crime victims agree that community policing policies are essential to protecting the entire community and encouraging immigrants to access police protection.
- Despite the fact that elected officials police officers law-enforcement associations and many others have stated that expanded local enforcement of immigration laws undermines public safety some critics and policymakers continue to oppose community policing strategies that limit police inquiries about immigration status. They insist that these state and local policies violate federal law and allow foreign-born criminals to avoid deportation dismissing repeated statements from state and local police to the contrary. However Members of Congress DHS and the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) have determined that states and localities with community policing policies are complying with federal law and properly assisting immigration agents in identifying undocumented criminals.
To read the full study click here for the Special Report (Updated April 2011).
Lynn Tramonte is Deputy Director at Americas Voice and is the organizations primary liaison to Capitol Hill and policy groups in Washington DC. Prior to joining Americas Voice she worked at the National Immigration Forum.
