It sounds a tad extreme, a little like throwing the baby out with the bath water. But according to the Associated Press, the City of Brotherly Love “will stop giving U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement access to a real-time arrest database, saying the agency is misusing the information to conduct sweeps in which otherwise law-abiding immigrants are also being caught up.”
By law-abiding immigrants the AP means illegal aliens who have not been arrested for a crime. In other words, Philly is punishing ICE for enforcing the Trump administration’s stricter policy on migrants who came into the U.S. between ports of entry, which is against the law.
Federal officials, meantime, are quoted as noting that “the decision puts U.S. citizens in danger.”
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Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney, who literally danced for joy following a decision to designate the city as a “sanctuary” (see video below), told the AP, “We’re not going to provide them with information so they can go out and round people up.”
Needless to say, I think @janeslusser and @PhillyMayor are pretty excited about today’s ruling affirming Philadelphia as a Sanctuary City. pic.twitter.com/gdnnjZT9ps
— Steve Preston (@StevePrest) June 6, 2018
The problem with that line of thinking is that the majority of the people ICE goes out and rounds up are people who should be rounded up and whose capture by authorities makes the city safer.
In May, for example, ICE conducted a seven-day sweep of the city in which they arrested illegals who had committed crimes, faced pending criminal charges, or had previously been deported, but Philly turned around and released 14 of them back onto the streets. Mayoral spokesman Mike Dunn defended the move, explaining that ICE’s tactics of sweeping raids have the effect of sowing distrust and anxiety among members of our immigrant communities.” But aliens who are here legally having nothing to fear.
Maybe Philly’s mayor should take a lesson from his counterpart in Oakland, Calif., who took liberal outrage a step further in March by tipping off illegal aliens about an impending ICE raid. Three of the illegals so advised have gone on to reoffend.
