All
this amendment does is prohibit use of funding to violate current law. As we all know, Federal grant recipients of the State Criminal Alien
Assistance Program, or SCAAP, are not using Federal funds in
contravention of Federal law. The amendment is really about so-called sanctuary cities. This and
other amendments like this seek to effectively overthrow community
policing by diverting State and local police from their core mission of
protecting public safety. Imposing this one-size-fits-all approach
would degrade trust between immigrant communities and local police,
thereby undermining public safety in all communities and for all
residents. We should not be attempting by word or deed to turn our local law
enforcement into an arm of Federal immigration efforts. I live in a
sanctuary city, and I can tell you with great certainty that amendments
like this one will make my hometown less safe. People will be less
likely to report crimes and cooperate with investigations simply
because of the concern that they will be deported for interacting with
local law enforcement. What we need is broad and humane immigration reform which would place
undocumented immigrants on a workable and earned path to citizenship,
thereby allowing them to contribute even more to their families,
communities, and our country. Our immigration system is broken, but this amendment does nothing to
fix it. I urge my colleagues to defeat this amendment. And I must say, the sanctuary cities, as they are called, have a lot
of support from law enforcement throughout the Nation because they know
that they need to speak to people in the community and get information
on who the bad guys are or who the bad gals are, number one. Number two, this is going to be a boom for the legal profession
because just about every city and every State is going to sue if this
ever became law. And we actually started holding moneys back because
they know how much help is brought to their community and how much they
want to keep it in place.
Keywords matched
immigration undocumented sanctuary city immigrants deported sanctuary cities immigrant