HomeMy WebLinkAbout02-06-17 Public Comment - M. McLargy - Sanctuary City (Distributed at Commission Meeting) i
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REASONS TO BECOME A SANCTUARY CITY
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• We know that Sanctuary Cities actually create a safer community for
all people, so that law enforcement can build trust with the immigrant
community and victims or witnesses aren't afraid to come forward.
We encourage everyone to communicate with Bozeman police officers
without fear of inquiry regarding their immigration status.
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"The Attorney General's Office recognizes that by protecting the rights and
well -being of immigrant families, we build trust in law enforcement and
other public agencies, thus enhancing public safety for all.
Justice cannot be served when a victim of domestic violence or a witness
to a shooting does not call the police because she fears that doing so will
attract the attention of officials who wish to deport her family members.
That's why standing together in this time of uncertainty is our most effective
tool for keeping our communities safe."
ERIC T. SCHNEIDERMAN, Atty General, New York State, January, 2017
In a sanctuary city, officials implement policies to restrict local police from
turning immigrants over to federal immigration agents and declare in no
uncertain terms that immigrants are welcome.
Sanctuary city is a broad term applied to jurisdictions that have policies in
place designed to limit cooperation with or involvement in federal
immigration enforcement actions. The term most commonly is used for
cities that do not permit municipal funds or resources to be applied in
furtherance of enforcement of federal immigration laws Cities, counties and
some states have a range of informal policies as well as actual laws that
qualify as "sanctuary" positions.
Many of the largest cities in the country have forms of such policies.
Federal law does not require the states or local police agencies to enforce
immigration laws nor does it give the states or local agencies the clear
authority to act in the area of immigration.
The decisions related to how local law enforcement agencies allocate their
resources, direct their workforce and define the duties of their employees to
best serve and protect their communities should be left in the control of
state and local governments.
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Local police agencies must balance any decision to enforce federal
immigration laws with their daily mission of protecting and serving diverse
communities, while taking into account: limited resources; the complexity of
immigration laws; limitations on authority to enforce; risk of civil liability for
immigration enforcement activities and the clear need to foster the trust and
cooperation from the public including members of immigrant communities...
In 2015, more than 200 state and local jurisdictions did not honor requests
from Immigration and Customs Enforcement to detain individuals, ICE
Director Sarah Saldana testified before Congress, and a subset of that
group refused to give access to their jails and prisons to ICE.
According to tracking by the Center for Immigration Studies, a think tank
that advocates for restricting immigration and opposes sanctuary policies,
roughly 300 sanctuary jurisdictions rejected more than 17,000 detention
requests, between January 1 , 2014 and September 30, 2015.
While most policies limit police officers' cooperation with Immigration and
Customs Enforcement, in every sanctuary city, officers still must and do
cooperate with federal authorities "when it is to assist them with criminal
activity other than immigration status."
• Detention and deportation has become a money making business
that is feeding the prison industrial complex and lining the pockets of
private corporations with billions of dollars.
• We have worked hard to hold the Obama administration, ICE and
DHS accountable. We will continue to fight, and make sure the
Trump Administration listens to the voice and stories of immigrant
leaders who deserve justice, not deportation.
• We are praying that the new administration will take a position of
discernment, compassion and morality with the understanding to
protect the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival that has benefited
nearly a million undocumented youths.
• As in the tradition of the prophets and apostles, God calls the church
to speak truth to power, liberate the oppressed, care for the poor and
comfort the afflicted. We are responsible to a higher calling, a higher
law that takes precedent over our flawed and outdated immigration
laws. The church has been a space of sanctuary for those wrongly
persecuted for thousands of years. The ability to provide
humanitarian sanctuary defines who we are and our call as people of
faith to care for the most vulnerable among us.
For some jurisdictions, resisting ICE is about limited resources. For others,
it is a political, ethical, or economic stand. For nearly all of them, rejecting
federal entreaties to find, hold, and hand over undocumented immigrants is
considered a requirement of effective urban police work.
Last Monday, Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck said his department
would not assist the Trump administration with deportations. Chicago
Mayor Rahm Emanuel said his city "is and will remain a sanctuary city." A
handful of other mayors, including those of New York; Oakland, California;
Minneapolis; San Francisco; and Seattle, also pledged that they would not
relinquish their status as sanctuary cities, places that in some way decline
to put their powers in the service of U.S. Immigration and Customs
Enforcement.
In the 100-day action plan his transition team released, Trump has
promised to block all federal funding for such places, which, depending on
how you define sanctuary cities, may number as many as 400. That pledge
sets Trump up for a showdown with local officials, including police chiefs
and sheriffs, who say aggressive immigration enforcement isn't compatible
with good policing. And it places cities at the frontlines of the resistance
against the incoming administration's policies.
Legal experts seem to agree that the Trump administration would have a
difficult time enacting the type of defunding it wishes to see. The most basic
argument against the federal government's ability to do that is nested in the
Tenth Amendment. "It's about federalism. It's about separation of powers,"
Phil Torrey, a lecturer at Harvard Law School and the supervising attorney of the
Harvard Immigration Project.
It is time to declare America's cities as sanctuaries of safety and not have
local police to do the work of immigration agents.
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RESOLUTION DESIGNATING THE CITY OF BOZEMAN, MONTANA AS
A CITY OF SANCTUARY
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WHEREAS the city of Bozeman has long been a community made up of
diverse individuals and identities; and
WHEREAS, the City of Bozeman respects all persons regardless of race,
class, gender, ethnicity, ability, sexual orientation, or immigration status;
and
WHEREAS the City of Bozeman rejects any effort to create religious litmus
tests or registries of individuals based on religion or ethnicity; and i
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WHEREAS, the power to regulate immigration is exclusive to the federal
government and the enforcement of immigration law is a function of the
federal government that currently resides with Immigration and Customs
Enforcement (ICE) of the Department of Homeland Security; and
WHEREAS, no federal law compels the local police to participate in the
enforcement of federal immigration law and any such requirement would
raise significant anti-commandeering issues under the Tenth Amendment
to the Constitution of the United States; and
WHEREAS, any perception that the local police are involved in the
enforcement of immigration law will undermine the police-community
relationships that have been built up over the years, and thereby
undermine the ability of the police to keep the community safe; and,
WHEREAS, it is essential to public safety that every person, regardless of
immigration status, who is a victim of or a witness to a crime feels
comfortable reporting crimes or aiding in the investigation of crimes; and
WHEREAS, the City of Bozeman, to protect immigrants' access to police
protection and public services affirms that, unless otherwise required by
law, or by court order, no Bozeman City officer or employee shall inquire
into the immigration status of any person, or engage in activities designed
to ascertain the immigration status of any person.
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THEREFORE,
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BE IT RESOLVED BY THE CITY COMMISSION OF THE CITY OF
BOZEMAN, THE MAYOR CONCURRING, THAT:
No law enforcement official shall stop, arrest, search, detain, or continue to
detain a person solely based on an individual's citizenship or immigration
status. No official shall inquire about a person's citizenship or immigration
status unless investigating illegal activity other than mere status as an
undocumented alien.
It is the policy of the Police Department not to inquire about the immigration l
status of crime victims, witnesses or others who call or approach the police
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seeking assistance.
No person in the custody of the City who would otherwise be released from
custody shall be detained pursuant to an ICE civil immigration detainer
request pursuant to 8 C.F.R. Sec. 287.7 . . . unless [a] such person is being
released from conviction for a first or second degree felony involving
violence and [b] the detainer is supported by a judicial warrant.
BE IT RESOLVED THAT: We join with cities from around the country to
stand with our immigrant residents, and hereby declare that the City of l
Bozeman is a `Sanctuary City' that strives to be a community free of
hostilities and aggressions and upholds the commitment to be a community
free of prejudice, bigotry and hate.
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the City of Bozeman actively supports
community outreach to educate the city's population about this resolution,
and therefore city policy, by:
1 . Encouraging City staff to educate about Bozeman being a City of
Sanctuary, and
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2. Adding signage in the city that visibly demonstrates the city's
commitment to its entire community, regardless of identity, and
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3. Communicating the resolution to all City departments; the administration
and the student government of Montana State University ; the Montana
delegation to the U.S. Congress; the local and national directors of
Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and to President Donald Trump.
Adopted by the City Commission the day of
2017, and signed by me in open session in
authentication of its adoption this day
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of ) 2017.
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Mayor
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of the City Commission of Bozeman, Montana
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"LEGAL IMPLICATIONS OF SANCTUARY CITY STATUS
The term "Sanctuary City" is not an official designation, but rather refers to
municipalities that pledge not to cooperate with the federal government on immigration
enforcement. New York, Seattle, Denver, and Los Angeles, among others, considers
themselves sanctuaries.
A sanctuary city resolution expressly forbids police or other city employees from
assisting in the enforcement of federal immigration law without a warrant. It prohibits the
use of city resources to aid ICE investigation, arrest or gathering of information —
unless it entails violation of criminal law.
A resolution is not an ordinance that has the effect of law — its effect is mostly
symbolic, though in the current climate it carries undeniable political force.
Now, most large jurisdictions—even those that do not label themselves as sanctuaries,
such as Philadelphia, which considers itself a "Fourth Amendment city," a municipality
that protects against unreasonable searches and seizures—will no longer commit their
police to federal immigration work. Hundreds of U.S. jurisdictions, including cities,
counties, and whole states, are exhibiting some form of noncompliance with federal
immigration authorities.
"Local law enforcement is not going to do the job of the federal immigration agency,"
Denver Mayor Michael Hancock stated. "It's not our responsibility." Denver doesn't have
a formal policy of noncooperation with federal immigration authorities, but it refuses to
unlawfully detain suspected undocumented immigrants without warrants.
Federal immigration laws are extremely complicated in that they involve both civil and
criminal aspects. The federal government and its designated agencies such as I.C.E.
and the Department of Justice have clear authority and responsibility to regulate and
enforce immigration law.
Federal law does not require the states or local police agencies to enforce immigration
laws nor does it give the states or local agencies the clear authority to act in the area of
immigration.
But while Congress almost certainly cannot force local cops to hold suspects, it can
withhold funding—a common way to avoid violating the loth Amendment, which gives
power not explicitly held by the federal government to the states. Trump has said he will
cut all federal funding from sanctuary cities as a threat to ensure compliance, taking up
a threat that congressional Republicans made last year after a San Francisco woman
was murdered by an undocumented immigrant with a criminal record whose detainer
request had been ignored by the county sheriff's department.
The version of that bill that was proposed by Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania this
summer would have cut two types of federal grants to sanctuary jurisdictions,
amounting to a penalty of about $700 million, collectively, on the 10 largest
noncompliant localities. That is a small portion of the money cities receive from the
federal government but would still put local authorities in a difficult position.
Legal experts seem to agree that the Trump administration would have a difficult time
enacting the type of defunding it wishes to see. The most basic argument against the
federal government's ability to do that is nested in the Tenth Amendment. "It's about
federalism. It's about separation of powers," Hing said. Phil Torrey, a lecturer at Harvard
Law School and the supervising attorney of the Harvard Immigration Project
Religious Sanctuary Legalities:
Legal Questions
Everyone always wants to know - are we breaking the law? Law is a lot like scripture -
its up to your interpretation. There is a law against bringing in and harboring persons not
authorized to be in the U.S. (insert footnote. INA Sec.274) While we are clearly not
bringing people in, whether we are harboring someone is up for interpretation. Some
courts have interpreted harboring to require concealment of a person, when we declare
Sanctuary for an individual we are bringing them into the light of the community, not
concealing them in the dark of secrecy (U.S. V Costello, 66 F.3d 1040, 7th Cir.
2012). Other courts have interpreted harboring to be simple sheltering (U.S. V Acosta
de Evans, 531 F.2d 428 (9th Cir. 1976).
Those who are entering sanctuary will most likely have an opportunity to win relief from
deportation, this means that they are not a high priority for deportation and that ICE can
and should grant them prosecutorial discretion. In essence, the Sanctuary Movement is
holding the administration accountable to their own standards and guidelines as put
forth by the President's Executive Actions.
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LAW ENFORCEMENT AND SANCTUARY CITIES
"We encourage everyone to communicate with Bozeman police officers
without fear of inquiry regarding their immigration status. "
Federal law does not require the states or local police agencies to enforce
immigration laws nor does it give the states or local agencies the clear
authority to act in the area of immigration.
The decisions related to how local law enforcement agencies allocate their
resources, direct their workforce and define the duties of their employees to
best serve and protect their communities should be left in the control of
state and local governments.
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Local police agencies must balance any decision to enforce federal �I
immigration laws with their daily mission of protecting and serving diverse
communities, while taking into account: limited resources; the complexity of
immigration laws; limitations on authority to enforce; risk of civil liability for j
immigration enforcement activities and the clear need to foster the trust and
cooperation from the public including members of immigrant communities.
Assistance and cooperation from immigrant communities is especially
important when an immigrant, whether documented or undocumented, is
the victim of or witness to a crime. These persons must be encouraged to
file reports and come forward with information. Their cooperation is needed
to prevent and solve crimes and maintain public order, safety, and security
in the whole community.
Local police contacts in immigrant communities are important as well in the
area of intelligence gathering to prevent future terroristic attacks and
strengthen homeland security.
Immigration enforcement by local police would likely negatively effect and
undermine the level of trust and cooperation between local police and
immigrant communities. If the undocumented immigrant's primary concern
is that they will be deported or subjected to an immigration status
a
investigation, then they will not come forward and provide needed
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assistance and cooperation.
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Distrust and fear of contacting or assisting the police would develop among
legal immigrants as well. Undoubtedly legal immigrants would avoid contact
with the police for fear that they themselves or undocumented family
members or friends may become subject to immigration enforcement.
Without assurances that contact with the police would not result in purely
civil immigration enforcement action, the hard won trust, communication
and cooperation from the immigrant community would disappear. Such a
divide between the local police and immigrant groups would result in
increased crime against immigrants and in the broader community, create a
class of silent victims and eliminate the potential for assistance from
immigrants in solving crimes or preventing future terroristic acts.
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Immigration violations are different from the typical criminal offenses that
patrol officers face every day on their local beats. The law enforcement
activities of local police officers revolve around crimes such as murder,
assaults, narcotics, robberies, burglaries, domestic violence, traffic
violations and the myriad of other criminal matters they handle on a regular
basis.
Federal immigration laws are extremely complicated in that they involve
both civil and criminal aspects. The federal government and its designated >'
agencies such as I.C.E. and the Department of Justice have clear authority
and responsibility to regulate and enforce immigration laws...
The specific immigration status of any particular person can vary greatly
and whether they are in fact in violation of the complex federal immigration
regulations would be very difficult if not almost impossible for the average
patrol officer to determine. At this time local police agencies are ill equipped
in terms of training, experience and resources to delve into the complicated
area of immigration enforcement.
HISTORY OF SANCTUARY CITIES
This is not a new phenomenon. New York City had a law prohibiting city employees
from reporting to federal immigration authorities until Congress pre-empted it in 1996.
Then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani, of all people, fought for the city's law in court and lost. "We
can remind people that no one is required to turn in the names of illegal aliens," he said
at the time, "and we can encourage people not to do that." But even though cities can
no longer mandate "don't tell" provisions, they can still adopt "don't ask" and "don't
enforce" rules, and so they have.
Today, the nation's three biggest cities, New York, L.A., and Chicago, alone account for
about 2 million of the undocumented residents who help make up the fabric of American
life. Can cities—and the hundreds of other jurisdictions that have some kind of explicit
sanctuary policy—serve as a bulwark against a Trump administration pushing to deport
millions? The answer is almost certainly yes.
ICE divides deportations into two categories: border and interior. The former is
straightforward: Agents apprehend entrants on the coastlines, at airports, and in the
desert around the southern border with Mexico. The latter is much more complicated.
Once immigrants have integrated into society, their evictions are harder to achieve—in
part because they're harder to justify: They have homes, jobs, children, and
communities.
For years, immigration enforcement was the purview of the federal government, which
managed to deport tens of thousands each year. Then came the 1996 immigration bill,
which gave immigration officials vast powers and expanded the types of crimes that
enabled detention. Annual deportations leaped from 70,000 in the 1996 fiscal year to
nearly 200,000 two years later. The law also deputized local law enforcement as
immigration police. In the wake of Sept. 11, 2001, dozens of jurisdictions signed up,
which helped the Bush administration deport 200,000, and then 300,000, and finally
nearly 400,000 people a year during his terms. Under a 287(g) agreement, counties
such as Texas' Harris (which includes Houston) and states such as Florida opted to
make their cops into the eyes and ears of ICE, changing the nature of police work. The
largest local collaborator was Arizona's Maricopa County, home of Phoenix, where
Sheriff Joe Arpaio waged a yearslong campaign of intimidation, harassment, and racial
profiling against immigrants. (The Department of Homeland Security rescinded the
agreement with Maricopa County in 2010.)
This was a crucial factor in the linear growth of deportations under Bush. ICE is the
largest investigative agency in DHS and employs about 6,000 enforcement officers. But
its numbers are tiny compared with the nation's full-time law enforcement officers, who
numbered about 725,000 in 2013.
In 2008, at the recommendation of the 9/11 Commission, the Bush administration
introduced a new information-sharing program called Secure Communities. The idea
know release dates. This decreased cities' liability for complying, and DHS was able to
boast that dozens of sanctuary jurisdictions had come back around. It also allowed both
federal enforcers and cities to claim victory. Under PEP, only a small percentage of
detainer requests are rejected. At the same time, many fewer requests are made. Many
advocates, however, saw little difference between S-Comm and PEP and doubted the
administration's claim to be focused on more serious criminals.
Still, deportations fell rapidly. Apprehensions at the border now account for more than
two-thirds of deportations, up from about one-third in 2008. The number of ICE
deportations that start in the interior and evict U.S. residents has fallen by 70 percent
since 2009.
But forcing cities and states to participate will be more difficult. Thanks to a 1997
Supreme Court case (over, of all things, federally mandated background checks for gun
sales), local police can't be dragooned into doing Washington's work. On the campaign
trail, Trump promised to get noncompliant jurisdictions on board. But if the past decade
is any guide, local police will resist any stricter policy. Major city police chiefs have
repeatedly stated their opposition to enforcing federal immigration law.
They were once the single most important funnel of immigrants into detainment,
according to Muzaffar Chishti of the Migration Policy Institute. "I don't know of a single
major city police chief that does not abhor the general entanglement of federal
immigration enforcement and local police," he said. Chishti is optimistic that local
authorities can effectively slow a deportation push by Trump.
But while Congress almost certainly cannot force local cops to hold suspects, it can
withhold funding—a common way to avoid violating the loth Amendment, which gives
power not explicitly held by the federal government to the states. Trump has said he will
cut all federal funding from sanctuary cities as a threat to ensure compliance, taking up
a threat that congressional Republicans made last year after a San Francisco woman
was murdered by an undocumented immigrant with a criminal record whose detainer
request had been ignored by the county sheriff's department.
The version of that bill that was proposed by Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania this
summer would have cut two types of federal grants to sanctuary jurisdictions,
amounting to a penalty of about $700 million, collectively, on the 10 largest
noncompliant localities. That is a small portion of the money cities receive from the
federal government but would still put local authorities in a difficult position.
Legal experts seem to agree that the Trump administration would have a difficult time
enacting the type of defunding it wishes to see. The most basic argument against the
federal government's ability to do that is nested in the Tenth Amendment. "It's about
federalism. It's about separation of powers," Hing said. Phil Torrey, a lecturer at Harvard
Law School and the supervising attorney of the Harvard Immigration Project.
was simple: Any time a participating jurisdiction took fingerprints, it sent them to the FBI.
Now, those prints would also be checked against a DHS database. If DHS found
someone it suspected could be deported, the agency issued a detainer request.
Flagged individuals would then be held in local jails until ICE could arrive and place
them in federal custody. Some saw a judge, some didn't. Few had legal representation.
Between 2011 and 2013, when the program was at its peak, S-Comm led to 243,000
deportations—about 40 percent of the total interior removals.
In 2011, states and cities began to withdraw from the program. Part of municipalities'
reluctance stemmed from the human cost of complying with ICE. Jobs were lost and
families ruined over minor offenses. Between 2007 and 2012, for example, 260,000
noncitizens were deported for drug possession. Through 2011, according to ICE, more
than half of those deported through S-Comm either had no criminal record or had been
convicted of minor offenses like traffic violations.
The economic impact of deportations was also becoming obvious, especially in small
towns. Postville, Iowa, lost a fifth of its residents over a few hours when 1,000 DHS
agents raided the nation's largest kosher meatpacking plant. The company filed for
bankruptcy. The raid cost $5 million.
Perceived as agents of ICE, local police officers were met with growing distrust in
Hispanic neighborhoods by both legal and illegal immigrants. A survey of Latinos in
Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, and Phoenix—four of the nation's largest Latino
population centers—found that 44 percent of Latinos were less likely to contact the
police when they were the victims of crimes for fear of ensuing investigations. Even
among citizens of Latino origin, nearly a third were less likely to contact the police for
fear that cops would use the interaction to investigate their family, friends, or neighbors.
The President's Task Force on 21st Century Policing, a report released last year,
recommended DHS terminate its reliance on state and local criminal justice.
Finally, the policy had a dubious legal foundation. By detaining people on the word of
ICE, cities made themselves vulnerable to Fourth Amendment lawsuits. In 2014, a
handful of federal district courts concluded that local police would be liable for civil rights
violations for heeding ICE detainer requests without warrants.
Three things changed in Obama's second term that conspired to send deportation
numbers plummeting to a 10-year low. The Obama administration replaced S-Comm
with a less stringent protocol. DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson declared a new focus on
high-risk individuals. And local resistance flourished.
A crucial question heading into the Trump administration is this: To what extent did local
noncompliance precipitate the deportation decline?
When the Obama administration ditched S-Comm, its replacement was a more flexible
system called the Priorities Enforcement Program. In some cases, instead of asking
local authorities to detain immigrants until they could be picked up, ICE started asking to