TRUST me (No Sanctuary here)

Want to get everyone you are with irrationally angry? Just mention the concept of sanctuary cities. Often times, I see it written about and get this feeling.

This has become a hot topic at the national level obviously, but the fun has even spread here to Illinois. Follow Gov. Rauner on Facebook and you'll see plenty of people who are upset with him over either HB 40 or SB 31. I've written previously about HB 40 and the circus that has followed since it's inception. However, the close second in terms of generating chatter from the far right is SB 31, also known as the TRUST Act (or the misnomer "sanctuary state"). Before we get there, some backstory is needed.

In the United States, a sanctuary city is a city that limits its cooperation with the national government effort to enforce immigration law. Leaders of sanctuary cities want to reduce the fear of deportation and possible family break-up among people who are in the country illegally so that such people will be more willing to report crimes, use health and social services, and enroll their children in school.

Part of this is to have local residents (legal and illegal) help police and cooperate with investigations into local crimes. Local is the keyword there. Local and state cops don't enforce federal law. Most courts generally interpret that federal law takes priority over state law, the U.S. Supreme Court in the majority of cases has ruled in favor of the federal government, recently with Arizona's  SB 1070 law, which was passed in 2010 and struck down in 2012 by the Supreme Court as unconstitutional. President Trump made his initial splash talking about illegal immigration, and one of his first acts as president was an executive order directing the Secretary of Homeland Security and Attorney General to defund sanctuary jurisdictions that refuse to comply with federal immigration law. However, the courts on challenge ruled the president was exceeding his constitutional authority by trying to punish local governments that refuse to cooperate with his immigration policies in April.

Just this month, a federal judge in Philadelphia ruled that the department can’t withhold funding from the city because it refuses to cooperate with federal authorities on immigration enforcement. The key theme here is the courts basically striking down attempts by the federal government to make states or allow states to enforce federal law.  The federal government cannot retroactively make an authorized grant conditional on the recipient of the grant performing an action which is only within the federal government’s purview. Here is where this comes back to Illinois.

In December of 2016, The federal district court of the Northern District of Illinois has invalidated the federal government’s practice of issuing detainers against people in law enforcement custody, ruling that the practice exceeds the government’s limited warrantless arrest authority under federal immigration laws. Immigration detainers are written requests sent by ICE that ask local police to detain individuals beyond the time when they otherwise should be released, ostensibly so the immigration agency may take the individuals into custody.

To keep practices among departments consistent and prevent breaking a federal court decision, police chiefs, business groups and immigrant organizations came up with a bill, SB 31. As summarized by the Republican, Trump supporting Lake County Sheriff:

The legislation requires that local police not comply with immigration detainers and warrants not issued by a judge. Curran said that’s already standard practice. writing it into the law could help stop other sheriffs or police chiefs from going rogue, supporters say

He also threw in this little quip, and since the anti SB 31 and anti HB 40 groups overlap, I found this interesting.

 If you’re pro-life, this is a life issue,” Curran said. “It’s not simply the unborn child. It’s the dignity of the human being. These are people number one. At that point in time, I knew I was totally wrong.”

I'm sure that one will sting, if not make some people think. We have the Illinois Association of Chiefs of Police, the International Association of Chiefs of Police, 174 business leaders and 179 faith leaders all supporting the bill that just codifies what law enforcement was already doing and is in compliance with federal court order. It seems to be in good order. However, when Gov. Rauner signed the bill, this is how many conservative groups responded.

One of the most vocal critics was the Illinois review, in concert with the Illinois Family Institute, got the rage machine fired up before the ink was dry. Illinois Review wrote, "If Illinois moves forward with this law, it will not only face the loss of targeted federal funding, but could also face other federal sanctions by the Department of Justice." Of course, the court had already ruled that was not the case.

The Illinois Family Institute was fact checked by Politifact Illinois and rated false. The first release listed details that were included in the first version of the bill, but later taken out. In a response, the institute wrote "In truth, the language was not necessary since state and local law enforcement officers are prohibited from making any arrests anywhere in Illinois according to the guidelines of the statute." But this wasn't about making arrests, it was about detainers requested by ICE to local law enforcement without a warrant.

Since then, the "sanctuary state" language is used by everyone upset with this bill. We still have conservatives stating false information as this recent op-ed shows. "This new law restricts law enforcement from collaborating with federal immigration enforcement agencies to arrest or detain anyone unless the federal authorities have a warrant. It also offers protections for schools and other safe havens." Potential Rauner challenger Jeanne Ives said that this bill, "has become a litmus test for Republicans and their support of him in 2018." She has heavily criticized Rauner for signing the bill, using the "sanctuary state" term frequently.

To reiterate, SB 31 does NOT prohibit law enforcement communications with federal agents, does NOT create “safe” zones such as hospitals and schools, and  does NOT create “sanctuary” state or municipalities. However, for many of my conservative friends, anything that hints of policy that doesn't require immediate deportation seems to be catering to illegal immigrants. The Illinois Review, Rep. Ives and even Attorney General Jeff Sessions should just read the bill. They all might learn something.

The TRUST Act is a bill supported by businesses, law enforcement and religious leaders. It works as part of our system of federalism, states do states and federal does federal. I don't want to make this whole article seem like illegal/undocumented immigration isn't a problem. Sure they may be less likely to commit crimes, but that doesn't give much comfort to anyone who have been hurt by illegal immigrants. As noted by the Congressional Budget Office, state and local governments incur costs for providing services to unauthorized immigrants and have limited options for avoiding or minimizing those costs. The tax revenues that unauthorized immigrants generate for state and local governments do not offset the total cost of services provided to those immigrants. This is despite the fact the amount that state and local governments spend on services for unauthorized immigrants represents a small percentage of the total amount spent by those governments to provide such services to residents in their jurisdictions. The Republican Party Platform calls for securing the borders, streamline the process and prevent abuse of the Visa system, which are all worthy goals.

We can't work on these measures if some in our party are (willfully or not) sharing misinformation about the immigration law. It also is helpful to call everyone who disagrees with us a Republican in name only (R.I.N.O). For the love of Illinois, just stop. Feel free to call out Conservatives in name only (C.I.N.O), but realize not everyone who is a Republican is a conservative. They don't own the party. There are plenty of those I would call (and call myself) NPR Republicans who are pro-business, pro-law enforcement and pro-federalism. That it who we are, and that is what the bill does. Trust me.