Texas asks residents to rat out sanctuary cities

By Stephen Dinan - The Washington Times - Tuesday, September 26, 2017

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton asked residents Tuesday to begin ratting out cities and counties that refuse to comply with the state’s newly revived anti-sanctuary law.

After a federal appeals court resuscitated the crux of the law Monday, Mr. Paxton welcomed the public to help him police the counties and cities that had resisted the law.

In particular, the court said, Texas could require localities to comply with “detainer” requests from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement asking that illegal immigrants be kept for pickup at the behest of a federal deportation officer.

“By enforcing the key provisions of SB 4, we will prevent dangerous criminals from being released back into our Texas communities,” Mr. Paxton said, referring to the legislative name for the anti-sanctuary law.

Mr. Paxton has set up a website to collect complaints. The complaints must be accompanied by sworn statements laying out the facts of the alleged violation.

Immigrant-rights groups have called SB4 “racist” and an attack on immigrants, saying they fear it will lead to racial profiling.

“SB4 is the work of right-wing Texas politicians to further a white supremacist agenda to terrorize, detain, deport, incarcerate and separate families of color across Texas,” said Julieta Garibay, co-founder of United We Dream, an activist group for illegal immigrant Dreamers.

Nina Perales, a lawyer who fought Texas in the appeals court, said the judges’ decision this week is actually limited in its scope. She said cities and counties can still decline to comply with some detainer requests on a case-by-case basis.

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