Sanctuary cities encourage selective application of the law.

Link: Texas Governor Abbott signs Sanctuary Cities Bill.

Last week, Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed into law a bill which provides police officers with the authority to inquire about the immigration status of anyone they detain.  In addition, the bill requires local officials to hold criminal suspects for possible deportation.  Previously, immigration officers would place an Immigration Detainer on the suspect, which required that local authorities hold the suspect for up to forty-eight hours, to give federal law enforcement the opportunity to arrange deportation proceedings.  The new bill signed by Governor Abbott is in response to the Sanctuary Cities phenomenon, in which certain communities were choosing to ignore the Detainer request.  Opponents of the bill argue that it will encourage profiling and create fear in Hispanic communities,  while supporters call for even enforcement of the law.  San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, Houston, Austin, San Antonio and Dallas are just a few of the communities who
self-publicize their "sanctuary" status.  Police Officers in sanctuary municipalities are not allowed to inquire about a person's citizenship.

According to the law of the land, a person present in the United States without documentation is in this country illegally.  For years these persons were identified as "illegal aliens".  That term has since been designated "dehumanizing" by the progressives and the politically correct in our society, and since they make all the rules, "illegal alien" is a term no longer utilized to describe persons in our country without authorization.  At the same time, the politically correct machine has decided that any foreign national in the United States who wishes to stay permanently should be identified as an immigrant.  Again, back in the ancient days when I was studying Cultural Geography at College, the term "immigrant" was reserved for persons who had arrived in the United States legally, and had some form of documented status.  My mother was a French citizen who married my U.S. Citizen father; she obtained her legal residency through marriage.  The U.S. Department of State, through its various Embassies around the world,  issues Permanent Resident Visas by the hundreds of thousands every year.  These people follow the legal pathway to living in the United States.  With some rare exceptions, Visa applicants must wait years on the list before being selected.  These people are the true heroes in this mess.  While they wait to obtain legal authorization to live in the United States, hundreds of thousands cross the U.S./Mexico border every year without documentation.

The Democratic Party is very sympathetic to the plight of persons who are in the United States without permission; not surprisingly, every Sanctuary City has a Mayor and City Council dominated by Democrats.  The Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution to include Amendments to allow the people to change unpopular laws.  Its not the simplest of processes, nor should it be.  Laws are enacted to protect people and property.  Coincidentally, Sanctuary Cities, which flaunt the law, have become magnets for Mexican and Central American criminal gangs.  The criminal alien sans documentation but with a bit of common sense, will gravitate to the communities that are not allowed to ask his/her citizenship.  Gangs like the evil, violent Mara Salvatrucha Trece , which is roughly translated as "Gangster Salvadoran Soldiers", have established a dangerous presence in most of the Sanctuary Cities, as have the Sinaloa and Gulf Cartels.  One way to combat these groups is through identification, but how to you identify someone when the law prohibits Police Officers from determining nationality?

For many years, undocumented immigrants kept a very low profile.  The idea was to find a job, send some of the money back home to help out, and hopefully find a way to adjust status to Resident Alien (Green Card).  Basically, all persons involved on both sides of the issue agreed that the rule of law was central to the discussion.  Not anymore.  The rule of law has no place in Sanctuary Cities.  Municipal authorities in places like San Francisco, Houston and Seattle have decided that they get to decide which laws should be respected and which should be ignored.  At the same time, they claim that undocumented immigrants have civil rights GUARANTEED BY OUR CONSTITUTION.  The hypocrisy would be funny of it weren't so scary.  The longer we allow Sanctuary Communities to exist, the greater the encouragement for others to give their life savings to a smuggler and enter the United States illegally.  Many Central Americans are tempted by the lure of Sanctuary Cities to first attempt illegally entry into Mexico.  The Mexican government has not the slightest sympathy for persons entering Mexico "sin documentos".  People are robbed, beaten, sometimes assaulted, and dumped back on the other side of the border.  For all the bleeding heart liberals who believe that the United States has some humane obligation to persons trying to enter the U.S. illegally, does it matter that thousands are ruined, with many losing their lives, because of the existence of Sanctuary Cities?

National security is any nation is only as strong as its borders.  It is unfair to expect the American taxpayer to support ten million citizens of the Republic of Mexico.  In 1776, we were faced with tyranny and taxation without representation.  Our Founding Fathers went to war, to build a Democracy under the rule of law.  Mexican citizens must follow our example and stand up to the corruptocracy that pretends to be a government, and enforce their Constitution.  This includes going to war with the narcotraffickers who have an unwritten understanding with the government to stay out of each other's way.  Like it or not, the problem of undocumented immigrants has become an issue of national security for the United States, and we must get control of our borders.  At the same time, we must stand up for the rule of law and eliminate the reasons people are tempted to risk their lives, break our laws, and cross our border illegally.  This includes legitimate sanctions and jail time for employers who knowingly hire "cheap" labor provided by undocumented workers, and the elimination of communities who promise a safe haven for persons to live whose entire presence in the United States is predicated on breaking the law.