Recently, a woman in San Francisco
was killed
seemingly randomly allegedly by an illegal alien with a long rap sheet of
violent crime, deported five times. But he had been under city detention fewer
than three months previously – except that San Francisco, as part of the “sanctuary
movement,” long ago began to refuse to forward information about illegal
immigrants it detains to the federal government, even though legally local law
enforcement agencies must do so. Following the law enables the Immigration and
Customs Enforcement Agency to take custody of and deport them.
It’s no accident that “sanctuary
cities,” or those like San Francisco with an official policy of law enforcement
not asking about citizenship status, are larger cities with higher proportions of immigrants that have
higher crime rates. Given that population studies of the nation’s jails
show these contain disproportionately more non-citizens than their incidence in
the general population, and that a sample of diverse local jurisdictions reveals
the proportion of illegal aliens jailed is much higher than their estimated
population proportion, it’s likely that sanctuary cities (which would not keep
citizenship statistics) have even higher and more disproportionate numbers of
illegal aliens imprisoned. While the valid data about this are uncoordinated,
overall they point to increased numbers of illegal aliens elevate criminal
activity.
Simply, the policy of “don’t ask,
don’t tell” of sanctuary cities likely decreases public safety. This has
concerned Vitter as a federal lawmaker since
2007, where since on an annual basis he has introduced legislation to put more
teeth into enforcing the law by withholding some law enforcement federal grants
to cities with such policies. Regrettably, with Democrats in control of the
Senate (the overwhelming bulk of
sanctuary cities have been governed by Democrats for extended periods), his
various bills and amendments haven’t seen the light of day.
But if Vitter succeeds in his campaign
to win the governorship, it should not be difficult for him to adjust his
priorities to pertain to this smaller corner of the country. Currently, only
one city holds itself out as following sanctuary policies, New Orleans. As
governor, Vitter can back a law withholding, at the very least, Louisiana state
law enforcement grants to local governments with law enforcement agencies that
do not follow the federal Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant
Responsibility Act or the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity
Reconciliation Act that require them to cooperate with ICE. That would have cost
New Orleans over $600,000 for 2015 – to be sure, not a large amount where
the police department is budgeted for $140 million, but given the strapped
nature of city government with the myriad consent decrees and lawsuits it faces
concerning policing and its personnel and unfavorable
crime trends past
and present,
it would feel every cent of that if denied. Or, to pack more punch, a bill
could increase the latitude of state funding affected.
Yet it should not be just Vitter’s
responsibility; all gubernatorial candidates should address the issue by
committing to a similar preference. And during the course of the campaign this question
about whether they support a measure to encourage compliance with federal law should
be posed to them by the media or anybody else able to query them. Nor should
candidates for governor have all the fun; legislative candidates also should
commit when in office to legislation to discourage local governments from
permitting sanctuary policies.
It may be trendy for ideologues in
power to assert their solidarity with illegal aliens over whatever presumed
travails they face through instituting a sanctuary policy, but irresponsibility
of this nature cannot be afforded by the citizenry that suffers the
consequences of such folly. Louisiana’s candidates for governor and the
Legislature this year should be vetted on this issue, and those elected should
follow Vitter’s past lead.
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