DOES TEXAS HAVE ANY SANCTUARY CITIES? Texas Monthly, 2/11/2016, by Doyin Oyeniyi

Late last month, a group of immigration activists met Austin Mayor Steve Adler with demands that the Austin Police Department no longer cooperate with U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which would make Austin what conservatives have dubbed a sanctuary city. The Texas Tribune defines a sanctuary city as municipalities that have established policies prohibiting police officers from enforcing immigration laws or cooperating with federal immigration officials. Generally, when local police departments make a criminal arrest of someone who is in the country illegally, ICE can put in a detainer request for the department to hold the person for a period of up to 48 hours, giving ICE ample time to pick them up. Even though Austin has frequently been named a sanctuary city, the activists left the meeting with Adler disappointed. Although the mayor promised to work on each situation on a case-by-case basis, he didnt commit to authoring any policy that would prohibit APD from working with ICE. In fact, the confrontation between the activists and the mayor took place shortly after APD and the Travis County Sheriffs Department representatives pledged to cooperate with the agency. So how did Austin and several other Texas cities earn the designation of sanctuary city, even though they dont seem to exist in the state? The issue became a national concern when an undocumented immigrant, whod previously been deported multiple times, shot and killed a woman in California. The suspect had originally been in the custody of ICE, but hed been turned over to the San Francisco Sheriffs Department because of a drug-related warrant. ICE had requested a detainer, asking to be alerted when he was released, but San Francisco doesnt honor those requests and later released him. The frustration over the San Francisco shooting carried over to Texas when Dallas County Sheriff Lupe Valdez announced that she would be handling detainment requests on a case-by-case basis for some minor offenses. This announcement came around the same time that Valdez and Dallas County were hit with a civil rights lawsuit accusing them of holding immigrants for longer periods of time than is constitutional. That same day, Gov. Greg Abbott wrote a public letter criticizing Valdezs decision and warned that the state might enact harsher laws or reduce funding for police departments with policies that promote sanctuary to people in this state illegally. Valdez responded to Gov. Abbotts criticism and explained that her new policy hasnt affected how she handles detainer requests from ICE: In 2015 we did not have any detainer issued by ICE rejected by the Sheriffs Department. From January 1, 2015 until todays date October 26, 2015, we have accepted 1469 detainers from ICE and declined zero. ICE is familiar with our agreement and doesnt submit a detainer unless it falls into the upper two categories that are designated so in effect we have declined zero.

2 Still, the governor is putting his support behind SB 185, which aims to ban sanctuary city policies in Texas. The bill was introduced in 2014 and has failed to pass twice, but Abbott plans to address it again in 2017. According to the bill and the governor, local police departments and municipalities that dont cooperate with ICE run the risk of losing state grant funds. For the Austin Police Department, a loss of state funds could mean losing important programs, as KXAN reports: For example, APD has about $600,000 of total state grants. One of those is a Violence Against Women Act grant, which pays for two temporary counselors and training for all officers in domestic violence services. If we lost those grants, it would be a tremendous impact on our division and our community, said Kachina Clark, who runs APDs Victim Services. That would be a quite a loss to APD and Austinitesif Austin was actually a sanctuary city. The immigration activists who asked Adler to adopt sanctuary city policies certainly know that Austin isnt one. And Dallas, which spurred Abbotts involvement against such policies, isnt one either. In fact, many immigration activists were surprised by Abbotts letter criticizing Valdez when theyve often viewed her policies as harsh. For people such as Caroline Canizales, the deportation defense director for United We Dream, Valdezs stance on immigration is especially disappointing considering that shes a Latina and that she comes from an immigrant background. So if cities such as Austin and Dallas are cooperating with ICE, how are these cities still under the threat of losing state funding? Sanctuary city concerns might be legitimate issues in places like San Francisco, but things arent the same in Texas. San Francisco not honoring detainer requests is not the same as Dallas reducing the amount of requests they honor, especially if their new policy change is actually in line with the Department of Homeland Securitys Priority Enforcement Program, which focuses deportation efforts on people with criminal offenses, not civil ones. As Matt Simpson, a strategist for the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, explained to the Associated Press, Im not sure Texas has any sanctuary cities. Part of the confusion stems from the fact that there doesnt seem to be a consistent understanding of what the phrase even means. During an interim Senate committee hearing on border security in December of last year, Deputy Attorney General Brantley Starr told the committee that there is no one defined definition that we know of in the law [of a sanctuary city]. According to Major Wes Priddy, the chief administrator for Travis County jails, theres also some confusion over the appropriate role of local police departments when it comes to immigration. I think there are some people who still believe that the sheriffs office is working as immigration agents and that we are actively picking people up because they are in the country illegally, that we are actively involved in deporting people, he told the Texas Tribune. Local police departments arent performing raids or asking for legal status without prompting. They arent ICE, after all. Its only after someone is arrested for criminal activity and then matched to ICEs database through FBI fingerprint background checks that immigration issues arise, and then ICE becomes involved. There arent many reliable sources for listing sanctuary cities in Texas, and the few websites that do provide a sort of database dont share consistent qualification methods. The map of sanctuary cities across the country provided by a website called the Center for Immigration Studies and a

3 post by Jessica Vaughan cites government documents [she has] obtained through FOIA requests and other channels, and independent research as the basis for the over 300 locations flagged. According to that map, Dallas County and Travis County are both sanctuary cities. Another website lists several other Texas cities, but their primary qualification for making the lists seems to be any presence of immigrants, whether or not theyre involved in criminal activity. This section of a submitted post is part of the reason League City made it onto their list: This is a rather old picture of illegals standing in front of a city EMS station. Off to the right is the League City Police Department. And just down the street from the LCPD Building is the City Hall. This picture was taken later on in the morning when the crowd was a little thin, because there are not as many in the Google pic. This picture was about 10am. Best Guess. Mayor Randall & Chief Jez believe that these law breakers have the constitutional right to a Peaceful Assemble regardless of their, Status. They refuse to do anything about it. Didnt mean to write you guys a book, but this has become out of hand. GOD Bless America, AND->HELP!! If police not actively harassing groups of people local residents suspect to be in the country illegally makes an area a sanctuary for immigrants, its no wonder the bill in the Senate has failed several times. Its probably hard to pass legislation thats trying to fix a problem Texas doesnt really have. Professors Note: In May of 2017 Governor Abbot signed into law SB4, which effectively banned Sanctuary Cities in Texas. The law was challenged in the federal courts, but appears to have passed constitutional muster and remains in effect.

Introductory comments. The idea of sanctuary cities is ancient. They have existed for thousands of years. For instance, under ancient law in the Middle East, some civilizations allowed people who had "accidentally" killed a person to run to these cities for "sanctuary," protection, from family members who had a legal right to seek the person out and execute them. As long as they were within the boundaries of the sanctuary city, the family members were prohibited from taking revenge. In modern day USA we also have what are sometimes referred to as sanctuary cities. The definition of what is and is not a sanctuary city is unclear; they are not all the same. Part of this exercise is about sanctuary cities today, and part of this exercise will gage your thoughts on the concepts of citizenship and borders

QUESTIONS:

Module 5 Engagement Exercise: Spring 2022/GOVT 2305

Please respond to the following prompts/questions, related to the article entitled Does Texas Have Any Sanctuary Cities? (ICE=US Immigrations and Customs Enforcement)

1. In what way did SB185 attempt to hold municipalities accountable for not cooperating with ICE?
2. How does the Texas Tribune define sanctuary city?
3. If ICE puts in a detainer request, how long must an arrested individual be held by city police?
4. According to this article, when are local police departments likely going to involve ICE?
5. This article describes an event related to the San Francisco Sheriffs Department and ICE. In your own words, what had ICE requested that department do and what was the arrested individual accused of doing to a California woman?
6. What is the Dept. of Homeland Securitys deportation focus on for the Priority Enforcement Program?

Please continue and respond to the following prompts/questions regarding citizenship and borders.

1. Internationally, there is some discussion about doing away with the concept of citizenship. That is, individuals and groups who promote abolishing citizenship argue that humans should be free to come and go across what we now call international borders because in the world they envision there will be no such borders and you would not be a citizen of one specific nation. In a paragraph, argue for or against this concept of citizenship; your argument should explain why you are in support of maintaining the concept of citizenship or why you are in favor of abolishing the concept of citizenship.
2. Open Borders. For this exercise, open borders means being able to come and go across the US/Mexico border at will for work, vacations or residence. Under this definition, you could still be detained by US/Mexico agents at the border for possession of such things as controlled substances or evidence of other crimes. Are you in favor of such an open border as described here? In a paragraph, argue for or against this type of border; your argument should explain why you are in support of this type of border or why you are against this type of border.