L.A. mayor not rethinking 'sanctuary city' policy
By Sean Higgins • 7/15/15 4:01 PM
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti told the Washington Examiner that high-profile cases such as the murder of San Francisco resident Kate Steinle have not prompted him to revisit his own city's policy of not automatically turning over illegal aliens wanted by the Department of Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.
"It did not cause us to think in a new direction," he said during an appearance at the National Press Club in Washington on Wednesday.
Garcetti said that Los Angeles "cooperates with ICE all the time" adding that "it should be that way. But we do demand a judicial order if there is a detainer." A detainer is the official notice from federal authorities that it wants to take an immigrant into custody for deportation.
In other words, the city will comply with the federal request only if it is accompanied by a judicial warrant or a judicial determination of probable cause. He argued that the requirement was necessary to ensure good relations with the immigrant community.
"It is about establishing trust," Garcetti said. He instituted the policy in July 2014, following the enactment of California's Trust Act, which narrowed the list of crimes under which local law enforcement authorities could detain immigrants for federal authorities.
The Associated Press reported last year that the state law resulted in a 44 percent drop in turnovers in the counties for which data was available. Exact numbers for Los Angeles do not appear to be available.
Steinle was killed July 1, shot in an act apparent random violence. The suspect in the case is an illegal immigrant with seven felony convictions. The case has drawn national attention and become a cause celebre among critics of open-door immigration policies.
Los Angeles is one of 276 state and local jurisdictions nationally that have policies of non-compliance regarding ICE detainers. The jurisdictions are known as "sanctuary cities."
Cities and counties that have "sanctuary" policies against turning over illegal immigrants to federal authorities released more than 8,145 aliens sought by Immigration and Customs Enforcement during the first eight months of 2014, according to Department of Homeland Security data. A little more than a third — 2,984 — had previously been charged or convicted of a felony.
Almost one-quarter of those released — 1,867 illegal immigrants — were subsequently arrested on other criminal charges during the same eight-month period. Just 40 percent of those re-arrested were arrested or deported by federal authorities. The remaining 60 percent remain at large.
The Center for Immigration Studies, a think tank that favors immigration restriction, obtained the data through a Freedom of Information Act request. Between the beginning of last year and the end of August, ICE had a total of 8,811 refusals, the data shows. In some cases, the same immigrant was the beneficiary of multiple rejections. The five jurisdictions that had the most refusals included Florida's Miami-Dade County and four counties in California: Los Angeles, Alameda, Santa Clara and San Diego.
Garcetti also criticized the use of the term "sanctuary city," arguing it was originally used to refer to places that refused to allow the deportation of political refugees, not ordinary foreign citizens. "The term has really morphed," he said.
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/l....rticle/2568349
