Why Does America Have Sanctuary Cities?

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Sanctuary cities, as they are known, have become one of the leading subtopics in America’s immigration debate. These local jurisdictions have various laws, different in each case, that limit police cooperation with federal immigration authorities. In practice, this means that undocumented immigrants, when arrested by local police, are not always handed over to the feds for deportation. In many cases the immigrants are released despite having criminal records. The issue of sanctuary cities rapidly came to the fore last year, after an illegal immigrant was released in San Francisco and later murdered 32-year-old Kate Steinle.

I. Hillary Clinton

Hillary Clinton is a supporter of sanctuary cities. The Democratic nominee believes they allow local police more flexibility in dealing with immigrant communities. In cases of misdemeanors or traffic offenses, for example, local authorities might decide that deportation is too extreme a punishment. In areas where undocumented immigrants are automatically deported, Clinton believes, communities are more reluctant to cooperate with law enforcement, increasing the overall challenge of fighting major crime and reducing violence. Supporters of sanctuary cities further argue that the laws protect the constitutional principle of state and local rights. Opponents to sanctuary cities, these supporters say, are effectively claiming that local police are incapable of exercising judgment on when to deport.

II. Donald Trump

Donald Trump has promised to defund all sanctuary cities. He thinks they undermine federal law, as part of a liberal effort to promote open borders and cheap labor. Trump notes that sanctuary cities refuse requests from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to detain and deport thousands of illegal immigrations every year. This includes about 1,000 with criminal records every month, according to ICE. Kate Steinle’s murderer, for example, was a homeless, five-time deportee who over decades had committed multiple felonies within U.S. borders, including manufacturing heroin and violent assault. For Trump, this case shows how sanctuary cities are putting American lives at risk. “[W]here was sanctuary for Kate Steinle … ” Trump asked in his nomination speech. “Where was sanctuary for all the other Americans who have been so brutally murdered, and who have suffered so horribly?”

III. Elizabeth Allen

Elizabeth Allen is a professor at UC Irvine and author of a book on the history of sanctuaries. Allen sees America’s sanctuary cities as part of a tradition dating back to antiquity and the Middle Ages in which certain centers, usually religious, were inviolable refuges for people seeking mercy. She argues that sanctuary cities, in the U.S., function as a moral corrective to draconian deportation policies. Federal immigration law is inhumane and bureaucratic, she argues, because it imposes painful consequences regardless of circumstances. Allen notes that, unlike criminal rulings, federal deportations don’t consider mitigating factors. In this way, she says the sanctuary system serves as an “escape valve for society when the law can’t meet the deeper demands of justice.” The professor points out that sanctuary cities stem from protecting Central American migrants fleeing wars stoked by U.S. policies in the 1980s.

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Further Reading: CNN / NBC News / LA Times

This brief was written by Jared Metzker.

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