Beyond sanctuaries: Liberals call on police to stop arresting illegals to prevent dep
Beyond sanctuaries: Liberals call on police to stop arresting illegals to prevent deportations
By Stephen Dinan - The Washington Times - Wednesday, March 21, 2018
Civil rights groups said Wednesday that sanctuary city policies aren’t enough to thwart President Trump and called on state and local governments to stop enforcing what they deemed low-level crimes in order to keep immigrants off the Trump administration’s radar altogether.
A report for the Century Foundation, a liberal think tank, and the Massachusetts chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union says that even in places where localities have refused to cooperate with deportation efforts, illegal immigrants are spotted by federal authorities when they show up in databases after arrests.
The answer, the groups said, is for local police to stop arresting immigrants — particularly those who are also racial, religious or sexual minorities — with crimes such as drug offenses, driving without a license, larceny and trespassing.
“In Trump’s America, immigrants have ample reason to fear that any interaction with the criminal legal system will result in the initiation of deportation proceedings against them,” the report said.
Another option is to reduce criminal penalties so legal immigrants convicted of offenses don’t rise to the level of being targets for deportation, the advocates said.
Denver has already done just that by cutting the sentences for some offenses to a maximum of 364 days rather than a full year. That change of a single day drops those offenders lower on the federal deportation priority list.
ACLU: Shield illegal immigrants from deportation by not enforcing low-
