Protests against ICE have gone from the sublime to the ridiculous, with frog-suited activists and nude cyclists entering the fray as lawsuits and recriminations fly and Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) threatens political prosecutions once electoral fortunes turn — the latter a twist on what beat cop Jim Malone (Sean Connery) called “the Chicago way” in the 1987 classic, The Untouchables. At its heart, this is really a fight over “sanctuary” policies, which only provide sanctuary to the worst criminal aliens. If sanctuary jurisdictions truly believe only a small minority of immigrants are criminals, they should give ICE access to those few bad apples and they’ll almost definitely see the agency’s “at large” arrests plummet.
'Sanctuary Jurisdictions'
The Center uses the term “sanctuary jurisdictions” to refer to states and localities with laws, ordinances, regulations, resolutions, policies, or other practices that obstruct immigration enforcement and shield criminal aliens from ICE enforcement.
They do so by refusing ICE detainers for criminal detainees or prohibiting agencies from complying with those detainers, imposing unreasonable conditions on detainer acceptance, denying ICE access to incarcerated aliens, or otherwise impeding communication or information exchanges between their personnel and federal immigration officers.
When I began my career with the Immigration and Naturalization Service as a trial attorney in San Francisco in the mid-1990s, it was virtually unheard of for states and localities to refuse to assist federal officers in their duties — including immigration officers.
That’s because immigration arrests took dangerous criminals off the street and spared localities the costs of reincarcerating recidivists — and even if most illegal aliens aren’t criminals, criminal illegal aliens are criminals and criminals overall reoffend at sky-high rates.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member