8 ■ MARCH 9, 2018
OPINION THE CACTUS SHADOWS PRESS
TWO PERSPECTIVES With immigration policies under scrutiny from both sides of the aisle, students examine the legality of...
‘Sanctuary Cities’
PRO- BROOK BOWMAN According to the dictionary, the word “sanctuary” means “safe haven.” In the United States, there are over 500 sanctuary cities, whose goals are to provide a safe place for people who need it. In one form or another, sanctuaries have been around since Ancient Greece, and were once even a part of the judicial system in England. Since the early 1980s, American cities have opened up their free land to refugees from El Salvador and Guatemala while their homeland faced civil wars that killed many innocent people daily. In 1985, San Francisco was the first to pass a city ordinance that banned city police from helping federal immigration officers. Today, sanctuary cities are synonymous with illegal immigrants, and are the cause of much controversy. In the United States, there are over 11 million undocumented immigrants, according to the Pew Research Center. President Trump has targeted sanctuary cities and released an executive order that would expand immigration enforcement and punish local governments who do not comply. Additionally, Trump promised to withhold federal dollars from such cities. The order was later denied by a federal judge, and has not gone into effect. Opponents of sanctuary cities often cite stories about horrible crimes committed by illegal immigrants. The most famous being the death of Kate Steinle, where Juan Francisco Lopez Sanchez, an illegal immigrant and convicted felon, murdered Steinle while walking down the streets of San Francisco. However disturbing these crimes may be, statistics do not support the often-repeated cry that illegal immigrants are murdering our citizens at a higher rate than your average American. For example, a recent report by John R. Lott Jr. of the Crime Prevention Research center stated thatre 163 percent more likely to commit a first degree murder. The statistics Lott used to reach this conclusion are controversial, and there are many studies that show that immigrants are less prone to criminality than the average U.S. citizen. Instead of attacking sanctuary cities, people should be paying attention to their message. Advocates of sanctuary cities know that, in most cases, deportation is the wrong punishment for illegal immigration, which is a breach of civil, not criminal, law. They understand, as do most judges and juries, that our laws are not perfect, and that they do not adequately protect the needs of strangers who, for the most part, have crossed the border to take work that is eagerly offered them. Allen summed it up clearly. “No legal system can perfectly implement justice in every circumstance. Sanctuary serves now as it has in the past as a corrective and a challenge to such imperfection. We should remember that it was once a part of the law, and it remains an effective way to reform and strengthen it.”
CON-EMMA RUSSELLO
“By enforcing this law, Governor Jerry Brown is putting the people in his state in danger.”
“Many studies that show that immigrants are less prone to criminality than the average U.S. citizen.”
A sanctuary city is a city that puts policies in place that prohibit the local police's involvement with federal immigration agencies. This is a dangerous practice that should not be allowed. In January, a law that officially named California a sanctuary state went into effect. This law prohibits police in California from asking people about their immigration status, or from participating in some federal immigration enforcement activities, according to an article on Fox News. By enforcing this law, Governor Jerry Brown is putting the people in his state in danger. One of the more famous cases about illegal immigrants happened in California in 2015 when, in San Francisco, a 32 year old woman named Kate Steinle was brutally shot while walking down a well-known pier with her father. The man who fatally shot her was an illegal immigrant with a criminal record who had slipped into the United States five times before. He should have been deported for the sixth time, but, since San Francisco was a sanctuary city, they did not contact any immigration agencies when he was picked up for other charges. The illegal immigrant was acquitted of all crimes in November, 2017, except for being a felon in possession of a firearm. This raised much debate, and the illegal man that killed an innocent women, was sent back to Mexico, only to most likely re-enter the country illegally again, according to an article on CNN. Time and time again, one hears on the news about an illegal immigrant involved in a criminal activity, who had been protected by sanctuary cities. One of which includes, in Portland, an illegal immigrant who brutally raped a 65 year old woman to the point of almost killing her in her own home. Prior to that, he was released into the community instead of being deported by the Portland police. Supporters of sanctuary cities believe that federal immigration deportation policies are unjust because they cause police to arrest anyone who looks like an immigrant, and causes people to live in constant fear of deportation. For many people here illegally, being sent back home is cause for fear for their lives. However, in a study of Arizona done by John R. Lott Jr. in early 2018, the president of the Crime Prevention Research center, he found that, based on data from 1985 to 2017, undocumented immigrants are at least 146 percent more likely to be convicted of crime than other Arizonans, and 163 percent more likely to commit a first degree murder. Violent crimes committed by illegal immigrants do not only occur in sanctuary cities, but it should be a wake up call to those cities that are. Supporters of sanctuary cities are putting their fellow citizens at risk by allowing criminals to remain in the country illegally. It is one thing to provide a safe haven for people who are escaping bad situations. It is another thing to allow known criminals to be here. Leaders of these sanctuary cities should focus on making our country safer for everyone.
\SARA WINDOM
HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT ‘SANCTUARY CITIES’? CONNOR SCHMID, FRESHMAN “I think sanctuary cities should be allowed as long as they are allowing people in from countries that have a lot of bad stuff going on, and if they are not doing bad stuff in
HARTMAN LARSON, SENIOR “I don’t support sanctuary cities, I feel that if they are going to come here, they need to do it legally.”
CARMEN LOPEZ, JUNIOR “I feel like sanctuary cities should be allowed because everyone should have the equal right to live and work here.”