Time to drop the hammer on sanctuary cities
“Sanctuary” is defined as a haven of refuge, calm and asylum from danger.
Unfortunately, it’s been hijacked by Democratically-controlled cities to mean harboring illegal immigrants, many of them felons, in defiance of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, prohibiting states from withholding immigration and incarceration status of illegals from federal immigration authorities, while circumventing this act by releasing these felons from prison to remain undocumented.
According to the Department of Homeland Security, of the 3,000 illegal immigrant felons released in Los Angeles in one year, the recidivism rate was 65 percent, culminating in the Kate Steinle incident when Juan Lopez, an illegal immigrant with seven felony convictions, was released by San Francisco authorities and subsequently shot her to death.
The left cries out that opposition to sanctuary cities is racism, a factoid debunked by a Harvard study showing that 80 percent of voters oppose sanctuary cities. Ironically, Democrats crusade for more government in our lives, but condemn it when it doesn’t suit their political agenda.
Thus far, these cities have suffered little appropriate legal action for their effrontery, but withholding certain federal funds is being considered. However, there is a federal immigration statute that allows a maximum of five years imprisonment for anyone harboring a criminal alien and up to life imprisonment for officials when their non-compliance results in the death of someone, as in the Steinle case.
It’s time the Department of Justice drops the hammer on cities who unnecessarily endanger the community at-large.
Don Maresca
Bluffton
How to submit a letter
Send letters to the editor by email to letters@islandpacket.com or letters@beaufortgazette.com.
Or you may submit a letter online.
Letters to the editor must be 250 words or fewer and include your first and last names, street address and daytime telephone number so we can verify the letter before publication.
You are limited to one letter per 30 days.
Letters may be edited for length, style, grammar, taste and libel. All letters submitted become the property of The Island Packet and The Beaufort Gazette.
Letters will be accepted only if they are typed into the body of an email, not sent as an email attachment.
This story was originally published December 5, 2017 at 1:48 PM with the headline "Time to drop the hammer on sanctuary cities."