Is he serious or trying to get Congress to finally reform our immigration laws? Who knows, but President Donald Trump tweeted that his administration is “giving strong considerations” to send illegal immigrants to sanctuary cities.
Since November, the idea to place illegal immigrants in sanctuary cities floated around as Trump butted heads with Democrats over immigration and a border wall.
The White House shot down reports from The Washington Post, but Trump’s tweets make it look like the idea is still alive and well.
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi does not like the idea:
“The extent of this Administration’s cynicism and cruelty cannot be overstated,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s spokeswoman Ashley Etienne said in a statement Friday. “Using human beings—including little children—as pawns in their warped game to perpetuate fear and demonize immigrants is despicable, and in some cases, criminal.”She added: “The American people have resoundingly rejected this Administration’s toxic anti-immigrant policies, and Democrats will continue to advance immigration policies that keep us safe and honor our values.”
People have crowded our border, which has caused an overflow at detention and housing centers. Officials simply do not have the room. So back in November, an email from the White House asked about sending them to these sanctuary cities.
One ICE official noted “that there were budgetary and liability issues, but also said ‘there are PR risks as well.'” ICE also worried the move could cause “political retribution.”
Acting Director Matt Albence said no one in the White House pressured him to take the proposal.
Another administration official claimed the shipment to sanctuary cities “is not our ideal policy,” but instead making “enough detention space so we can detain people and remove them.”
Trump has long criticized these sanctuary cities, usually run by Democrats, who do not want to work with federal immigration agencies. Last May, Trump’s new budget targeted these sanctuary cities: change or lose your federal funding.
The situation between California and Trump escalated in March 2018 when the DOJ sued the Golden State over its “sanctuary state” status after “three recently-passed state laws were deliberately interfering with federal immigration policies.”
California’s rebellion led to many of its cities to reject the sanctuary state laws while other states joined the DOJ’s lawsuit.
In July 2018, a judge “approved California’s motion to throw out the lawsuit related to two of those measures: Senate Bill 54, the sanctuary state law, and Assembly Bill 103, which allows the state attorney general to inspect detention facilities.” However, the judge “did permit the case against a portion of Assembly Bill 450 to proceed,” which “forces companies to inform workers within 72 hours of any federal requests to inspect employment records.”
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