Dear sanctuary cities: ICE is "open for business"

If the mayors who got together recently thought that their efforts to promote the #RESIST movement were going to have any impact on the immigration law enforcement community they may be in for some serious disappointment. The Acting Director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) sent out a message this week to the leaders of the so-called sanctuary cities which essentially boils down to a choice often framed in dramatic movie scripts. You can do this the easy way or you can do this the hard way. Either way, ICE is open for business. (FOX News)

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The acting ICE director is vowing to use new resources to target undocumented immigrants in sanctuary cities – a move likely to hit resistance from mayors and local law enforcement who previously have refused to cooperate with federal authorities.

ICE Director Thomas Homan told The Washington Examiner he thinks sanctuary cities like New York and San Francisco are “ludicrous” and plans to direct extra agents to those areas.

“What I want to get to is a clear understanding from everybody, from the congressmen to the politicians to law enforcement to those who enter the country illegally, that ICE is open for business,” Homan said.

While it would have been nice for the mayors of these cities to see the light and agree to protect their own citizens by fully cooperating with immigration authorities, there are still other options on the table. One of the most direct methods, as stated by Homan, is sending in more agents to offset the lack of cooperation coming from local authorities. Of course, that’s going to place more of a strain on the budget all the way around and Congress will need to up the department’s budget by a fair amount if we’re going to eventually hire the 10,000 more agents that the President requested.

One of the first stops the new agents might want to make is in the Fair Haven district of New Haven, Connecticut. A drama began playing out there on Thursday which we’ve been expecting to see more of for some time now. ICE had identified one illegal alien from Guatemala who was scheduled for deportation but she refused the order and has now taken up refuge in a church, claiming sanctuary. (New Haven Independent)

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A Norwalk woman took up sanctuary inside a Fair Haven church Thursday, after federal immigration authorities ordered her to fly back to Guatemala.

The woman, Nury Chavarria, 43, a single mother of four American citizens facing deportation for entering the country illegally, has taken up residence inside Iglesia de Dios Pentecostal, a church on East Pearl Street. She plans to stay until U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) reconsiders her case, said the pastor and advocates who are sheltering her.

Chavarria mainly wants to stay so as to not be separated from her children, including a 21-year-old with cerebral palsy and a 9-year-old who told reporters on Thursday that her mom is not a criminal.

The press does their usual job of painting Nury Chavarria in the best possible light, focusing on the fact that she’s a single mother of four who works as a housekeeper. More to the point, they’ve located an illegal alien with no other criminal convictions, which are the ones the press simply loves to highlight. You can even have some amount of empathy for Ms. Chavarria because she had previously applied for refugee status, which might have allowed her to stay in the country legally. But the request was denied and she’s been in regular contact with ICE since then. They simply hadn’t gotten around to deporting a low priority subject like that yet.

Yet the facts remain the same. She came into the country illegally, was denied legal status when she requested it and was always facing the prospect of deportation. This year her number was up and the fact that she’s got the media creating a circus around her to try to protect her doesn’t change a thing. She made the choices which put her in this situation all on her own. And if we get the additional ICE funding which has been requested you should brace yourself for more of these stories because you can rest assured they will be on the way.

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