Thread: Lawsuit Challenges Austin's Sanctuary Status

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Lawsuit Challenges Austin's Sanctuary Status
LAST UPDATE: 11/7/2005 10:53:29 PM
Posted By: Jim Forsyth
This story is available on your cell phone at mobile.woai.com.

The family of murdered St. Edwards University freshman Virginia Garcia have filed suit against the city of Austin, claiming Austin's status as a so called 'sanctuary city' led to Garcia's murder, 1200 WOAI news reported today.

The 18 year old Garcia, who was known as Jenny, was stabbed to death insider her northwest Austin home, and police arrested an illegal alien, David Diaz Morales, 20, whom they said was 'infatuated' with Garcia. Morales was also charged with burglarizing Garcia's home.

Attorney Matt Burns said Austin's very controversial policy of prohibiting police and other local officials from referring cases to federal authorities for immigration law violations and deportation led to Garcia's murder, and is also in violation of federal law.

"The Austin police department has both informal and written procedures which actually prohibit police officers from cooperating with federal immigration authorities," Burns said.

Burns said the fact that Morales re-entered the United States after being deported, and the fact that he had previously been charged in the sexual assault of a child, would have qualified him for immediate deportation, meaning that he would not have been in Austin to murder Jenny Garcia, but that didn't happen because of Austin's 'sanctuary' law.

"He had been deported from this country once and re-entered, which is a felony offense," Burns said. "And prior to the murder of Ms. Garcia, Mr. Morales had also been arrested in the alleged sexual assault of a 12 year old."

Morales is held in the Travis County jail without bond on a capital murder charge.

There are more than a dozen so called 'sanctuary cities' across the United States, from Portland Oregon to Chicago to Houston. The Sanctuary City policy generally forbids local law enforcement officers from checking on, or reporting, a person's immigration status. Austin passed its sanctuary city law in 1997. Supporters say it fosters 'trust' between officials and immigrants, and say they're afraid that without such protections, illegals would be unwilling to report crimes and would become easy prey for criminals.

But Burns says Sanctuary City laws violate federal statute.

"Cities, counties, local governments are forbidden from prohibiting, or in any way restricting, their employees from communicating with federal immigration authorities," Burns said. "The city of Austin's policies are clearly in violation of that."

Congress has repeatedly rejected proposals to deny certain types of federal funding to Sanctuary Cities in an effort to get them to rethink their law.

http://www.statesman.com/metrostate/con ... lsuit.html

Family: City's immigration stance cost daughter her life

City says there is no policy preventing immigration cooperation
By Steven Kreytak
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Tuesday, November 08, 2005
Humberto Garcia thinks that his 18-year-old daughter, who was brutally murdered in his family's North Austin home last year, would still be alive if Austin police aggressively enforced immigration laws.

Now Garcia and his wife are suing the City of Austin, Police Chief Stan Knee and Assistant Chief Rudy Landeros in federal court, claiming the city has a policy against reporting undocumented immigrants that should be overturned. The city's lawyer denies such a policy exists.

About two years before he killed Jenny Garcia Hayden in January 2004, David Diaz Morales had been investigated by Austin police on suspicion that he molested a child. Diaz, 22, wasn't arrested at the time, but Hayden's father thinks Austin police knew Diaz was a Mexican citizen in the country illegally and should have called immigration agents to deport him.

In July, Diaz admitted in state District Court that he broke into the Garcia family's Whispering Valley Drive house and killed Jenny, his former IHOP co-worker, with a butcher knife. With his plea he avoided facing the death penalty and was sentenced to life in prison for murder and 20 years for burglary. Diaz won't be eligible for parole until he's served 50 years.

"What happened (to Jenny) happened because he was illegally in the country and was not deported," Garcia said.

The family's lawsuit, filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Austin, claims that the city, including the Police Department, has an illegal "sanctuary city" policy that prevents or significantly restricts employees from communicating with federal authorities about the immigration status of people in Austin.

The family is seeking a court order that states that city employees, including members of the police department, may communicate with the federal immigration bureau without restriction or interference from the city.

City lawyer Anne Morgan said the city has no policy that prohibits employees, including police officers, from calling immigration officials.

She notes that the City Council did in 1997 pass a resolution in response to stricter federal immigration laws labeling Austin a "safety zone" where all people "are treated equally, with respect and dignity regardless of immigration status."

That policy said city officials "will not discriminate or deny city services on the basis of a person's immigration status."

Austin Police Association President Mike Sheffield said that while police are not prohibited from reporting illegal immigrants to their federal counterparts, they generally leave immigration enforcement to the federal agents who scour Travis County jails for immigration-law violators.

Because immigrants are frequently the target of robberies the police department has tried to inform immigrants that they would not be turned over to immigration for reporting crimes to police.

The lawsuit cites, as an example of illegal policies, a police department order that states: "when undocumented aliens who are victims or witnesses of a crime are interviewed, they should be told that the INS will not be routinely notified."

INS refers to the Immigration and Naturalization Service, what is now the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

That policy would not have pertained to Diaz, who was a suspect in the child molestation case and not a victim or a witness.

Buddy Meyer, trial chief of the Travis County district attorney's office, said that Diaz was not charged after the allegations surfaced in 2001 because there was insufficient evidence.

After Diaz was arrested for Hayden's murder last year, additional evidence came to light and Diaz was indicted for indecency with a child, Meyer said. Those charges were dismissed upon his April plea bargain.

Buda lawyer Matt Burns, who filed the suit on behalf of Humberto Garcia and his wife, Ann Hayden, said that the family is not asking for monetary damages in the case.

"We are not ruling it out . . . but for now no amount of money is going to bring Jenny Garcia back," Burns said. "We'd like to work it out with the city just seeking a cessation of the illegal policy."

Both articles added to the homepage...


here

http://www.alipac.us/article-870-thread-1-0.html

and here

http://www.alipac.us/article-871-thread-1-0.html

Background information on the Jenny Garcia case is available at
http://www.scenepublications.com/JennyGarciaStory.pdf
http://www.belogical.com/blind_justice.htm
http://www.belogical.com/travis_county_da_reneges.htm