On Thursday, the Immigrant Legal Resource Center released a new report called “The Rise of Sanctuary: Getting Local Law Enforcement out of the Business of Deportation.” The report (below) also featured an interactive map that shows the level of sanctuary protection in more than 3,000 counties across the country
“When it comes to sanctuary cities, President Trump is bullying local electeds and law enforcement to comply with illegal requests from ICE,” said Lena Graber, staff attorney at the Immigrant Legal Resource Center. “Trump’s anti-sanctuary attacks are so baseless that the Administration has lost every court ruling so far on their unconstitutional attempts to withhold federal grants. It is the Trump Administration, not sanctuary cities, who are violating the law and the constitution.”
According to a media release from the ILRC, the organization “tracks many different types of policies that limit local involvement in immigration enforcement. Nearly a quarter of counties in the country (735) currently do not hold on ICE detainers—a figure that has climbed steeply from 2013 when only a handful of counties had explicit policies against the practice. As federal immigration enforcement tactics have gotten more aggressive, communities have enacted broader policies limiting their assistance to ICE.”
“While 98 percent of counties have no official contract with ICE, there is a great opportunity in 2018 to strengthen and establish new policies that actively protect our immigrant neighbors and do not spend local resources detaining and deporting our community members,” Graber added. “Sanctuary policies are a commonsense response to a political agenda rooted in racism and exclusion and a step in helping to keep more families where they belong—together.”
