Mayors and local police chiefs have a message for the Trump administration: Define “sanctuary city” before you demonize us.
A bipartisan group of mayors and police chiefs met Wednesday with Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly to discuss President Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement executive orders — and some afterward expressed frustration with the lack of answers from the administration.
The first few months of the administration have been marked by increased tension between the administration and localities over Trump’s aggressive immigration enforcement, which many major city mayors have decried as destabilizing.
The meeting came days after Attorney General Jeff Sessions re-emphasized the administration’s desire to take federal funds away from so-called “sanctuary” jurisdictions, telling reporters that any jurisdictions applying for Justice Department grants and funds will be required to certify compliance with a piece of US law on sharing citizenship information — a policy first put in place by the Obama administration.
The week before, the Department of Homeland Security put out its first weekly report of law enforcement jurisdictions that declined to honor requests to detain undocumented immigrants beyond what is required by criminal proceedings. Mandated by the executive orders signed by Trump in January, the reports are part of continued pressure and a name-and-shame effort by the administration on cities to push them to help with federal immigration enforcement.
But after that first report, several cities listed claimed that they were erroneously included, and after Sessions’ comments, mayors immediately put out statements saying they are already in compliance with federal law he cited, and that their policies are focused on maintaining trust between local law enforcement and communities by not complicating their work with the duties of federal immigration officers.
Montgomery County (Maryland) Police Chief Tom Manger, who serves as president of the Major Chiefs Association, said Wednesday the group got “no answers” on specific administration plans to define and punish sanctuary cities.
“It could have been more productive had we gotten answers to those questions,” Manger said. “My hope is when I say this is a good start that there is follow up and we do get answers.”
Austin, Texas, Mayor Steve Adler said that if the administration’s goal, as it says, is to get “bad people off the street,” that they’ll recognize that is also mayors’ goal.
“In that regard, his priority is the priority of the mayors as well, so that gives us a place to start, common ground to achieve that result,” Adler said. “Most of the comments by the attorney general as well as the executive order would seem to indicate that the federal government is concerned about cities that are violating federal law, and since Austin and Travis County and the other cities represented today are not violating any federal law … my hope is we can find a common place to be.”
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said he asked Kelly to avoid “caricature,” saying no mayor wants violent criminals on their streets.
“The idea that there’s these cities who are like, ‘Please come here if you’re a violent criminal and if you’re undocumented you get extra bonus points and we’ll protect you,’ I said that doesn’t exist,” Garcetti said. “If the definition is that we’re going to continue our policies of four decades of our cops doing their job and the feds doing their job, then sure, we are, but we need you to define that, we need greater transparency and communication.”