AT A press conference two days
after Donald Trump was elected president, Bill de Blasio, New York’s mayor,
sought to assuage the fears of his city’s undocumented residents. “We are not
going to sacrifice a half-million people who live amongst us, who are part of
our communities, whose family members and loved ones happen to be people in many
cases who are either permanent residents or citizens—we're not going to tear
families apart.” During his campaign, Mr Trump vowed to deport millions of
undocumented immigrants from America. The leaders of New York and several other
“sanctuary” cities such as Seattle, Chicago and San Francisco (pictured) insist
they will resist any such dragnet. What is a sanctuary city?
There is no specific legal definition for what constitutes a sanctuary
jurisdiction but the term is widely used to refer to American cities, counties
or states that protect undocumented immigrants from deportation by limiting
cooperation with federal immigration authorities. Some decline to use city or
state tax dollars to enforce federal immigration laws. Many prohibit local
officials from asking people about their immigration status. Sanctuary policies
can be mandated expressly by law or practiced unofficially. Proponents say they
help ensure that undocumented immigrants don’t avoid reporting crimes, seeking
healthcare and enrolling in schools for fear of deportation. Los Angeles was the
first to institute such policies in 1979 when the city’s police department
forbade officers from detaining people with the objective of finding out their
immigration status. An unofficial tally by the Centre for Immigration Studies, a
non-profit organisation that studies immigration, categorises some 300 cities,
counties and states as sanctuary jurisdictions, including the cities of New
Orleans and Boston, and the entire states of California, Connecticut, New Mexico
and Colorado.
Scrutiny of sanctuary jurisdictions intensified last July after a young American
woman was shot in San Francisco by a man who was in the United States illegally,
had seven previous felony convictions and had already been deported five times.
In a campaign speech in August, shortly after the shooting, Mr Trump vowed to
block funding to areas deemed uncooperative with federal immigration
authorities. “We will end the sanctuary cities that have resulted in so many
needless deaths,” he promised.“[They] will not receive taxpayer dollars.” Reince
Priebus, Mr Trump’s chief of staff, confirmed in a television interview on
November 20th that the administration intends to make good on Mr Trump’s
campaign vow. If the administration proceeds with cuts, the results could be
dire: according to CNN, New York alone could lose $10.4bn in funding for social
services and other municipal programs.
Mr de Blasio called Mr Trump’s threat to cut funding for sanctuary areas
“dangerous” but cast doubts on whether the president-elect would actually follow
through. Rahm Emanuel, Chicago’s mayor, is also sceptical: “I don't believe
they'll do it, because that would mean every major city in the United States
would be targeted," he reasoned. “They will make a choice that this is not the
battle they want to take on because they have bigger fish to fry.” Slashing
funding is the surest way to attack sanctuary areas; combatting them legally
could prove more difficult. A recent court ruling in Illinois deemed it
unconstitutional for federal officials to ask local jails to detain suspected
undocumented immigrants without a warrant. Such challenges could make it
difficult for the Trump administration to follow through on its threats. Indeed
Mr Trump was conspicuously silent on deportation in a YouTube address on
November 21st in which he laid out his policy agenda for the first 100 days of
his presidency.