What is a “Sanctuary City”?
Correcting the Record on Sanctuary Cities
Immigration proved a central issue — perhaps even the central issue — for many voters in last month’s midterm elections. Along with politically charged debates over President Trump’s proposed border wall and what he called a “caravan” of Central American refugees, the term “sanctuary cities” was bandied about by candidates on both sides, most frequently as an example of a “soft-on-immigration-enforcement” policy that protects undocumented immigrants over American citizens.
These debates revealed a fundamental misunderstanding of what a “sanctuary city” actually is and isn’t. Deliberate mischaracterizations by politicians and imprecise media coverage have allowed a false and misleading narrative about sanctuary cities to seep into the mainstream consciousness.
As we prepare for the new Congress to take its seats in January, the record on sanctuary cities must be corrected. Whatever one’s view on this issue, let’s at least ensure we’re talking about the same thing.
First, there is no single definition of what a sanctuary city is, and the term itself is a misnomer. “Sanctuary city” policies are determined by individual cities, districts, and states. Broadly speaking, they are policies that limit entanglement between local law enforcement and federal immigration enforcement, but do not provide actual “sanctuary” from actions taken by federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). That is, they don’t attempt to prevent the federal government from enforcing immigration law. For this reason, many jurisdictions refer to themselves as “welcoming cities” rather than “sanctuary cities.”
Some of these policies restrict local law enforcement from inquiring about a person’s immigration or citizenship status. Some restrict local law enforcement from giving ICE agents access to local detention facilities or giving them 48 hours’ notice before a person in custody is released. More commonly, sanctuary city policies restrict compliance with ICE detainer requests, by which ICE requests local law enforcement to continue to detain an undocumented immigrant for up to 48 hours after he or she normally would be released in order to give ICE time to take custody of the immigrant for potential deportation proceedings. Several states, including California, and 633 counties nationwide (according to the Immigrant Legal Resource Center) have policies limiting compliance with ICE detainer requests.
The reasoning behind this is simple. When immigrant residents (both documented and undocumented) live in fear that any interaction with local law enforcement could result in the detention and deportation of themselves or others close to them, a breakdown in trust results that threatens public safety and impedes justice system leaders from doing their jobs. In areas like Los Angeles and Orange County, where it is estimated that one million residents are undocumented immigrants, law enforcement relies on cooperation from the immigrant community to investigate and prosecute criminal activities. Without such cooperation, crime festers and criminals go unpunished.
Sanctuary city policies seek to assure all members of the community that they can contact police or cooperate with prosecutors without fear of deportation. This is why, across the country, from Philadelphia to Chicago to Los Angeles, local law enforcement officials have signed on to nine amicus briefs prepared by my colleagues and me at Georgetown Law’s Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection in support of sanctuary city policies.
Importantly, sanctuary city policies do not prevent federal immigration officials from performing their duties. Local law enforcement don’t and indeed can’t stop ICE from finding, arresting, and deporting undocumented immigrants. In fact, by strengthening relationships with immigrant communities through sanctuary city policies, law enforcement officials make it easier for ICE to identify and locate those who present a risk to the safety and security of our communities.
Second, sanctuary cities are not new. What is new is that, in July 2017, the Department of Justice began demanding affirmative local police involvement with federal immigration enforcement as an unprecedented condition to receiving valuable federal grants used for programs relating to law enforcement, prosecution, the courts, crime prevention, and victim services, among others. This attempt to impose new prerequisites on receiving critical federal funding places counties, cities, and states in an impossible situation: lose federal grants that they rely on to support public safety, or lose the essential trust and cooperation of the communities they serve. Either way, the outcome is the same: everyone is less safe. Thankfully, courts around the country have been rejecting this unlawful approach by the Justice Department, including most recently in New York.
When policy makers and the media refer to “sanctuary cities” without being clear what they mean (or, worse still, deliberately distorting the term), they play into President Trump’s erroneous claim that those who oppose his immigration policies “want to turn America into a giant sanctuary city for violent predators and ruthless gang members.” In fact, the opposite is true, as dozens of law enforcement leaders and public safety experts around the country have said in the briefs our Institute has filed on their behalf.
Effective public policy must be rooted in a shared understanding of the facts. Policies that welcome immigrants into their communities by limiting local entanglement with federal immigration enforcement make cities safer. They drive down crime by fostering trust between community members and their local law enforcement. They allow residents and police to work together to find and prosecute “violent predators and ruthless gang members.” They are entirely consistent with our constitutional system and our federal immigration statutes. And they allow everyone — local and federal law enforcement, elected officials, prosecutors and judges — to do their jobs more effectively.
Mary McCord, Senior Litigator and Visiting Professor of Law, Georgetown Law’s Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection
