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Injunction on Withholding Federal Grants From Sanctuary Cities
Sanctuary cities across the United States scored a small victory earlier this week when the city of Chicago was able to secure a nationwide injunction stopping the U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions from withholding public safety grants from certain cities in the U.S. The Attorney General had previously vowed to withhold public safety grants from cities that refused to cooperate with federal immigration enforcement in deporting undocumented immigrants. This was in keeping with an earlier promise by the Trump Administration to strip away public service grant money from sanctuary cities.
Having local police help to deport undocumented immigrants would speed up immigration efforts by the federal government. This is because federal authorities would get notified sooner if an undocumented person was arrested for a criminal offense, and then detained. Federal authorities could also require local police office to hold the immigrant in order for federal authorities to come and pick him or her up for deportation.
Sanctuary cities’ refusal to cooperate with the federal government on deporting undocumented immigrants stems from the argument that providing such assistance would affect the trust the immigrant community has in the police. In granting the injunction, the court recognized that this community trust is a valid concern that cannot be easily regained if the cities were forced to comply with the federal government.
The judge made the injunction a nationwide injunction even though it was the city of Chicago filing the lawsuit because these issues affect cities throughout the country. Therefore, the injunction on withholding funds from Chicago would apply to cities in California, as well.
The nationwide injunction does not mean that the battle is over. The injunction only stops the Attorney General from withholding funds while a lawsuit is pending to determine whether the Attorney General does have the authority to take such action. Whenever that decision is made, the injunction may be lifted or become permanent. If the injunction is lifted, some cities may choose to comply with the requirement to coordinate and assist federal immigration officials in deporting people in order to get the grants.
Right now, this decision does not change anything in terms of the federal government’s ability to enforce federal immigration law by deporting undocumented immigrants. Therefore, if the federal government is able to track an undocumented immigrant without relying on the assistance of local police, the federal officers will arrest the person and begin deportation proceedings. There are expected to be several immigration related laws enacted during the Trump Administration’s tenure. How these laws may affect immigrants in the long term is yet to be determined.
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If you are an undocumented immigrant seeking to legalize your presence in the U.S., you should speak to an experienced immigration attorney to learn about your options. If you have been in the United States for some time, or if you are married to a U.S. citizen, you may have options to legalize your status. For more information on how you can fight deportation, contact our multi-lingual staff to speak to an experienced immigration attorney from Strassburg, Gilmore & Wei, LLP, in Pasadena, California and schedule a consultation.
Can Local Police Arrest Me for Being Undocumented?
Undocumented immigrants are often said to be breaking the law simply by being in the country. Therefore, some people wonder whether local police in their neighborhood have the authority to arrest and detain someone based solely on the person’s status as an undocumented immigrant. This is a question that is likely to come up more often now that the issue of sanctuary cities is in the spotlight across the country.
Immigration law is a federal matter, which means that state police and local city police officers do not necessarily go out of their way to enforce federal immigration law. Generally, only federal law enforcement officers can take someone into custody for violation of immigration laws. There are some situations under which a non-federal police officer can take a person into custody for suspicion of an immigration law. Federal law enforcement officers can also work with local police to take an undocumented immigrant into custody.
If local police officers were to enforce immigration laws, there is also a problem with how local police would determine which people were illegally in the country and which ones had the valid paperwork to be here. Police officers need reasonable suspicion to stop someone to investigate a crime, and need probable cause or a warrant to make an arrest. These restrictions should make it more difficult for police to target people for harassment or arrest simply because they look “foreign.”
All this does not mean that some police officers do not make up reasons to stop people based on racial profiling, and then look for a reason to arrest a person who may be in the country illegally. Police officers do have the right to stop a person briefly and inquire about their identification.
Once arrested on a criminal charge, for example, driving without a license or driving under the influence of alcohol, an undocumented immigrant can be picked up by federal law enforcement officials. A civil warrant for an undocumented immigrant based on a removal order is not in itself grounds for local police officers to arrest the undocumented immigrant, especially if there is no evidence of an independent criminal act.
Once an undocumented immigrant is arrested and jailed for a criminal offense, he or she is processed in the police system as part of the arrest. Once in the system, federal immigration officials can send a detainer request to the local police department asking that the immigrant be held for federal law enforcement officials to pick him or her up. This is the current issue with sanctuary cities: In those cities, officials have decided that police officers are not required to honor federal detainer requests.
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If your relative or loved one was picked up by immigration enforcement officers after being arrested on a local charge, he or she may be facing deportation soon. A criminal conviction may affect the way the person is able to contest the deportation. For more information on how an experienced immigration attorney can help, contact our multi-lingual staff to speak to an experienced immigration attorney from Strassburg, Gilmore & Wei, LLP today.
What is a Sanctuary City?
There have been some recent major changes in the political arena that are expected to cause changes to the U.S. immigration policy and how the law is currently applied in some cases. These expected changes have caused alarm because it could mean increased deportation for people who are out of status or who entered the country without a visa. Some cities across the country, including Pasadena, have responded by affirming their status as sanctuary cities in an effort to calm their immigrant populations.
The term “sanctuary city” refers to a city in which a person who is in the U.S. in violation of federal immigration law is not generally prosecuted by the city’s authorities solely based on his or her immigration status. This sometimes means that officials in a sanctuary city will not fully cooperate with federal authorities seeking to apprehend and deport an undocumented immigrant. For example, if an undocumented immigrant is arrested for theft, or a traffic offense, he or she will be prosecuted for the state law charge, but immigration officials will not likely be notified that the person is in custody even after city officials determine the person’s immigration status. Sometimes, even if immigration officials send a detainer request asking to be notified when the person is about to be released, city officials may refuse to honor that request.
Sanctuary cities base their authority to refuse total cooperation with federal immigration authorities on the tenth amendment of the constitution, which basically says the federal government cannot require compliance by states – and by extension the states’ cities – to enforce federal law. However, sanctuary cities cannot intervene to stop deportation. Although sanctuary cities offer some level of assurance that a person will not be deported if he or she is arrested or questioned by city police officers, deportation is still possible if the arrest is by federal U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers. Information gathered during an arrest by city police officers, such as fingerprints, is still passed on to the FBI and eventually to ICE.
There have been suggestions that federal funding to sanctuary cities will soon be reduced until they start cooperating, and that this may cause some sanctuary cities to start cooperating more fully with federal authorities. However, because of Supreme Court cases limiting the way the federal government may put conditions on federal funds to states, sanctuary cities are not likely to be completely cut off from federal funding. In any case, the threat of losing federal funds does not seem to deter cities from declaring they will continue to act as sanctuary cities, and most are reaffirming their status and setting up resources to help undocumented immigrants living within their borders.
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Whether you are an undocumented immigrant or a person in the country on an immigrant visa or under permanent resident status, you should familiarize yourself with your options in order to be prepared for any future immigration changes that may affect you. For more information, contact our multi-lingual staff to speak to an experienced immigration attorney from Strassburg, Gilmore & Wei, LLP, in Pasadena, California for a consultation.
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