Sanctuary cities may fly under radar as they welcome immigrants

Many jurisdictions declare themselves “sanctuary cities,” as a welcoming gesture to refugees and other immigrants, but other cities operate similarly yet are flying under the radar, local experts say.

The label is important because President Donald Trump has targeted so-called sanctuary cities and threatened to yank federal funding away from those jurisdictions.

“What the Trump Administration is trying to do is target those cities that have used the label ‘sanctuary cities.’ But there are cities that don’t use that label that have adopted pieces of it,” said Camilo Pérez-Bustillo, executive director of the University of Dayton Human Rights Center.

Avoiding the label may prove wise now that Trump has issued orders to crack down on sanctuary cities, he said. Some state government officials — including in Ohio — are also threatening to punish cities with the “sanctuary” designation.

“Definitely they are under attack and vulnerable,” said Pérez-Bustillo, who is a former advisor to the United Nations and coordinator of a project on human rights along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Trump’s efforts to punish sanctuary cities will likely face court challenges. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco Thursday rejected Trump’s effort to reinstate his executive order temporarily banning travelers from seven largely Muslim countries and halting acceptance of refugees from Syria.

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That court ruling allows a stay on Trump’s executive order to remain in place as a lower court considers a lawsuit to overturn the ban entirely.

Cincinnati has declared itself a sanctuary city and Columbus is looking into it. Dayton and Springfield have not made such a declaration.

The sanctuary city concept has its roots in the sanctuary cities of the Hebrew Bible and later the medieval churches that protected persecuted people within the walls of the church.

Today, sanctuary city is loosely defined as a city or jurisdiction where officials choose not to enforce federal immigration laws or where people are given access to government services regardless of their immigration status. Those policies play out over a wide spectrum of practices and are not always motivated by ideology, said Marc Clauson, professor of history, law and political economy at Cedarville University.

The law doesn’t require jurisdictions to comply with federal requests to detain undocumented immigrants and some jurisdictions argue they don’t have the money or room in their jails to do so.

Some cities refuse to turn immigrants over to federal officials for deportation or will not provide U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) with access to records, Clauson said. Others provide ICE with information for undocumented immigrants convicted of serious crimes but not minor ones.

Local law enforcement departments often don’t ask crime victims about their immigration status because they don’t want people to be afraid to come forward, said Butler County Sheriff Richard K. Jones, whose department also doesn’t seek that information from victims.

Nationally, an estimated 200 to 300 jurisdictions have declared themselves as sanctuary cities. It’s unknown how many others operate in much the same way.

Dayton officials in 2011 adopted the Welcome Dayton policy aimed at making immigrants feel welcome, but they say Dayton is not a sanctuary city.

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Last month Dayton Police Chief Richard Biehl rescinded a policy that limited officer’s contact with federal immigration authorities in cases involving misdemeanor violations and felony-level property crimes. City police were already working with ICE on cases involving more serious crimes.

Biehl said he made the change to comply with federal law. He emphasized that it is a civil violation to be in the country illegally and federal authorities have exclusive jurisdiction over enforcement of that law.

No Ohio cities appear on a national list of sanctuary cities compiled by The Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates for restricting immigration. Jones said cities making that claim are mostly just “playing to their base.”

Although he contends Dayton has declared itself a sanctuary city, no local jurisdiction — including Dayton — is truly a sanctuary city, Jones said.

“A sanctuary city would be cities that refuse to report criminals to the federal government,” he said. “I don’t know any law enforcement in this area that’s refusing to abide by the law.”

Local jurisdictions are not allowed to enforce federal immigration law, Jones said. If a police chief stands up and says he or she isn’t going to enforce immigration laws Jones’ response is, “Nor am I. We can’t.”

“We don’t go out and arrest or detain or call ICE if we run into someone who is here illegally,” Jones said. “Because we don’t have the federal authority to do that.”

As an ICE detention facility, Jones’ Butler County Jail has authority to enforce immigration law inside the jail. He has a contract to house about 250 prisoners — about half of them held for ICE. Six of his corrections officers are sworn ICE agents.

ICE is notified when undocumented immigrants are jailed, Jones said, and the jail hosts video deportation hearings with federal judges.

“Under President Obama we deported more from this jail than we did under President Bush,” said Jones. “Some of these people get deported and they come right back. We would prefer that they get a little taste of prisons in the United States.”

Pérez-Bustillo said the Trump orders assume incorrectly that immigrants are more likely to be criminals.

“The data says that it is not so,” Pérez-Bustillo said. “In fact, immigrants are less likely to commit crimes and are more likely to be victims of crimes.”

Six things to know about sanctuary cities

Sanctuary cities limit enforcement of federal immigration laws or give people access to government services regardless of their immigration status.
President Donald Trump has threatened to pull federal funding to jurisdictions that provide sanctuary to undocumented immigrants.
Ohio Gov. John Kasich opposes sanctuary cities.
Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel and State Rep. Candice Keller, R-Middletown, want to hold elected officials civilly and criminally responsible if undocumented immigrants in sanctuary cities injure or kill someone.
Two Democrats in the Ohio legislature want to make Ohio a sanctuary state.
The ACLU of Ohio says banning sanctuary cities is unconstitutional.

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About the Author

Lynn Hulsey

Lynn Hulsey is an investigative reporter focusing on business, the economy, government and politics.