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Editorial: Sanctuary cities are feeling the heat

The Baltimore Examiner Newspaper, The Examiner
Jul 11, 2006 5:00 AM (23 mins ago)
Current rank: # 1,520 of 13,855 articles

BALTIMORE - A Washington-based group that opposes illegal immigration plans a tongue-in-cheek billboard in Newark, N.J., that directs illegal immigrants to a Boston suburb — one of 29 cities and three counties throughout the United States that have declared themselves “sanctuaries” from federal immigration laws. The proposed billboard will read: “Attention: Illegal Aliens. Cambridge, Mass., is a sanctuary city. For help getting there, contact projectusa.org/NJ-mass transit.”


ProjectUSA director Craig Nelsen told The Examiner that his group has no immediate plans to put up a similar billboard in the D.C. area directing illegal aliens to Takoma Park, which passed its own sanctuary ordinance in 1985. Baltimore has been one since 2003. The “don’t ask, so we have nothing to tell” law specifically forbids city employees from inquiring about any person’s citizenship or residency status — or even releasing any information they might inadvertently collect to federal authorities, in clear violation of two 1996 federal laws.

But the pendulum now seems to be swinging the other way. The U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed an amendment by Rep. John Culberson, R-Texas, June 29 that makes sanctuary cities off-limits to $2.7 billion in federal crime-fighting grants. “These policies are designed to shield criminal aliens,” Culberson told his colleagues, “and my amendment is intended to uncloak them.”

If the Senate concurs, as it certainly should, jurisdictions like Takoma Park that actively prohibit employees — including police officers — from determining immigration status or assisting in federal investigations will soon find themselves cut off from federal crime-fighting funds. But Takoma Park residents need not worry. After all, the Tree City has also been designated a Nuclear Free Zone, so no terrorist posing as an illegal alien would dare detonate a dirty bomb within its leafy borders.

Edward Erler, senior fellow at the Claremont Institute, points out that sanctuary laws are actually based on a long-discredited doctrine used by New England states to nullify federal laws they didn’t like prior to the War of 1812 and by Southern states in the Civil War period. Sanctuary cities handcuff local police from identifying criminal aliens fresh out of prison who are subject to immediate deportation. Such safe havens for dangerous felons endanger everybody.

Prompted in part by last year’s killing of a Denver police officer by an illegal alien who worked at Mayor John Hickenlooper’s restaurant under that city’s sanctuary policy, Colorado Gov. Bill Owens signed a state law in May requiring all local law enforcement to report any person they reasonably believe to be here illegally to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. The Colorado General Assembly also intends to cut off state grants to all jurisdictions that don’t comply.

It’s way past time for the Maryland legislature to do the same.

Examiner