Thread: Sanctuary Cities Succumb to Blackmail

Sanctuary Cities Succumb to Blackmail
By Ronald W. Mortensen, June 11, 2010

"Jailed illegal immigrants pose policy dilemma" reads the Los Angeles Times headline.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld ... full.story

The policy dilemma that sanctuary cities face is self-imposed. Simply put, the dilemma is: Do they support and help uphold all of the laws of the United States, including its immigration laws, and turn illegal aliens who have been jailed over to the federal authorities for deportation, or do they ignore immigration laws and release illegal alien criminals back into the community in order to maintain good relations with the illegal-alien community?

Apparently, leaders in sanctuary cities all over the nation are staying awake nights asking themselves whether they should put American citizens first or whether they should ignore their oaths of office and sacrifice American lives in order to maintain good relations with the illegal-alien community.

The theory is that if law enforcement officers in sanctuary cities refuse to cooperate with federal immigration officials and if they protect illegal aliens from deportation, then illegal aliens will cooperate with the police.

So, what is the result of this sanctuary policy? Well, let’s take Chicago for example.

Chicago has strict gun control laws, so theoretically newly released illegal aliens won't have guns because of their desire to cooperate with law enforcement.

And, theoretically, a newly released illegal alien and all his friends and acquaintances will cooperate with the police in appreciation for the special treatment that the police accord illegal aliens.

Well, theory is one thing and reality is another thing.

Once again, according to the Los Angeles Times:

Mwenda Murithi, the Kenyan-born leader of a notorious Chicago street gang, was arrested 26 times after his student visa was revoked in 2003. Charged with at least four felonies, he served 30 days in the Cook County Jail for a 2007 drug violation. By law, he could have been deported immediately.

But Chicago officials did not report him to immigration authorities because city and county ordinances prohibit them from doing so.

Not long after he got out of jail, Murithi ordered a gang hit that resulted in the death of 13-year-old Schanna Gayden, struck by a stray bullet as she frolicked at a playground.

Chicago is not alone when it comes to releasing illegal aliens who, rather than cooperating with the police, later kill American citizens.

San Francisco's policy of not turning teenage, illegal alien criminals over to federal officials resulted in the death of three American citizens. The policy was later rescinded. (See the coverage of this story by CIS's 2009 Katz Award winner Jaxon Van Derbeken of the San Francisco Chronicle.)

So, elected officials in sanctuary cities have to make a choice.

Will they give in to blackmail from illegal immigration advocates who say that illegal aliens will refuse to cooperate with police unless police let illegal alien murderers, identity thieves, gang bangers, and other assorted thugs remain in the U.S.?

Or will they uphold the oaths that they have taken to enforce the law and to protect the citizens who elected them?

Unfortunately, it seems like blackmail trumps the oath of office in all too many communities and all too many American lives are cut short because of these misguided sanctuary city policies.

http://www.cis.org/mortensen/sanctuary-blackmail

All links within the original are available at the source link above.

you would think it would be possible to sue the cities for wrongfull death resulting in a person realesed back into the community rather than deported ...

There is an easy way to deal with those that won't cooperate with law enforcement.

Run an ICE check on them.

They will tell on all of the criminals then.

Reporting from Washington —
Mwenda Murithi, the Kenyan-born leader of a notorious Chicago street gang, was arrested 26 times after his student visa was revoked in 2003. Charged with at least four felonies, he served 30 days in the Cook County Jail for a 2007 drug violation. By law, he could have been deported immediately. But Chicago officials did not report him to immigration authorities because city and county ordinances prohibit them from doing so.


So, Chicago gets to devise a policy that goes AGAINST US law, but Arizona does not?!! Eric Holder are you paying attention??


Not long after he got out of jail, Murithi ordered a gang hit that resulted in the death of 13-year-old Schanna Gayden, struck by a stray bullet as she frolicked at a playground.Murithi, now serving 55 years, is just the sort of person U.S. immigration officials say they want to target under a program known as Secure Communities, which seeks to match the fingerprints of everyone booked into jail against immigration databases.



Whoaaa! Eric Holder, pay attention! We are now committed to spending several million dollars for the incareration of this animal, when if Chicago actually followed US law, he would have been deported!!



But the program, launched by the Bush administration and continued under President Obama, has become entangled in the suspicions and recriminations that characterize the debate over immigration policy.
Critics of the program say that turning illegal immigrants over to federal authorities would undermine the efforts of local law enforcement to win cooperation from immigrant communities. And they worry about providing immigration authorities with the fingerprints of those arrested on petty charges.
"I'll be reporting minor offenders, misdemeanants, people who are arrested on a traffic fine that they fail to pay," San Francisco Sheriff Michael Hennessey said. "I think that this throws too broad of a net out over the residents of my county."

David Venturella, who runs the program for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency, or ICE, said minor violators are not a priority unless they also have more serious criminal histories.
"Our focus is on criminal aliens," he said.


The is no such thing as an illegal aliens who is a "minor violator."


Many major city police agencies forbid officers from inquiring into the immigration status of witnesses and suspects, a policy adopted by local officials to shield illegal immigrants from federal authorities. But the Secure Communities program has divided those cities and the politicians within them. Houston and Los Angeles are participating in the fingerprint sharing program despite such rules, and San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom opposes the efforts of the sheriff and some county supervisors to keep his city out of it.

The federal program was designed to assuage such cities, Venturella said, because it doesn't require their active cooperation. The fingerprints are shared automatically, and ICE officers arrest those they intend to deport.
This arrangement stands in contrast to a more active federal-local effort known as the 287(g) program, under which ICE signs agreements that allow local police to arrest and detain people under immigration laws. Few big cities participate in that program. Still, out of political sensitivity, ICE currently is not matching fingerprints from counties, such as Cook County, that object to the Secure Communities program, he said.


What gives these local communities the prerogative to object to federal enforcement? YET ARIZONA GETS HAMMERED!! THERE IS SOMETHING VERY TERRIBLY WRONG HERE!!


Secure Communities is operating in 193 counties, including Los Angeles County, and ICE has checked 2.2 million sets of fingerprints submitted by local law enforcement agencies, spokeswoman Randi Greenberg said. Through April 30, there were 216,000 hits against a database of people who previously had been fingerprinted by ICE, she said.

Of that number, 24,000 had been charged with or convicted of what ICE classifies as the most serious offenses, including rape, murder and kidnapping. The remainder involved lesser offenses, ranging from bribery and fraud to petty violations, such as gambling.

ICE deported 6,100 of those charged with or convicted of the most serious offenses, and 14,300 who were charged with or convicted of lesser offenses, she said. The goal is to expand the program nationwide by the end of 2012.

Despite Venturella's assertion that ICE won't focus on people charged with lesser offenses, immigration rights activists aren't so sure. "We think it's an ill-conceived, ill-functioning program," said Joan Friedland, a senior attorney with the National Immigration Law Center. "Regardless of how or why a person got into police custody, whether it was based on racial profiling, whether it was a minor offense, whether the person is found not guilty, they are subject to deportation."


This is BS. Police are required to profile,


Friedland said she would be more comfortable with referrals based on convictions, not arrests. In Cook County, authorities can do neither. While the policies in Los Angeles and other cities allow police to notify immigration authorities about felons they suspect are illegal immigrants, Cook County forbids that, said Steve Patterson, a spokesman for the Sheriff's Office.

Asked why, Chicago Alderman Roberto Maldonado argued that the law does allow the reporting of felons to immigration authorities. "We're not protecting criminals," he said. The text of the law, however, contains no such provision.

Asked about the case of the Kenyan gang leader, Maldonado noted that ICE, the immigration enforcement agency, routinely peruses county arrest reports. "If ICE didn't have their eyes open, that is not our fault," he said. In Los Angeles, a case in 2008 reenergized a long-standing debate about the city's policy toward police questioning of immigrants.

Jamiel Shaw II, a 17-year-old football star who had been recruited by Stanford and Rutgers universities, was gunned down in March 2008, allegedly by gang member Pedro Espinoza. Espinoza, a 19-year-old illegal immigrant, had been released from the Los Angeles County jail a day before the shooting after serving time on a gun charge.

Although Espinoza had been in the custody of the sheriff, not the Los Angeles Police Department, activists unsuccessfully sought to use the case to overturn Special Order 40, the LAPD rule that limits the circumstances in which officers may inquire into a person's immigration status. An effort to repeal the policy by referendum failed last year when backers couldn't muster enough signatures to put the measure on the ballot.

Unlike in Chicago, nothing prohibits Los Angeles police officers from referring people they arrest to immigration authorities, said Jorge Villegas, commander of the LAPD operations office. If police arrest a gang member who has already been deported, for example, officers notify ICE, he said.

ken.dilanian@latimes.com