04 October 2007
Blog Home : October 2007 : Permalink
Oct. 4, 2007 | Al-Qaida's targets on 9/11 were in New York City and Washington. But if Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., and 233 other members of the U.S. House have their way, those cities and others at high risk of terrorist attacks, including some that have reportedly been the target of foiled plots, would be stripped of the federal funding intended to keep their citizens safe from attack.
At issue are so-called sanctuary cities. There is no single definition of a "sanctuary city," but in essence it is one that takes a "don't ask, don't tell" stance toward the immigration status of its residents.
So let me see here. Illegal immigrants are (by definition) breaking the law by not having a right to live or work here. There is also a non-trivial chance that illegal immigrants will turn out to be terrorists but that's irrelevant. The key is that these cities have declared that they will make no attemt whatsoever to enforce the law of the land and still expect their country to provide them with money. Imagine if this were a private corporation who wanted federal funding for (say) research in one division but which had another division which refused to hire anyone other than white non-jewish males. Do you think our leftie friends would not be insisting not only that the EEOC sue them but also that federal funds be withheld until they'd hired a few blacks, women, jews etc.But opposition to sanctuary cities is not a purely Republican issue. A poll conducted by Rasmussen Reports in August put the proportion of likely voters in favor of cutting federal funding to sanctuary cities at 58 percent, with just 29 percent opposed. Up to 49 Democratic members of the House have supported some versions of the anti-sanctuary legislation.
Bilbray says he thinks public support will eventually force the passage of some anti-sanctuary measure. "I think the Democrats are going to realize, look, we have to take this one," he said. "Because the areas where they're demanding sanctuary for illegals, they're not at-risk districts. They're not the districts where they're going to either hold, or lose the majority. It's going to be those places where the illegal immigration is a real hot issue, and the sanctuary city thing will hurt them if they stand by it."
I am, for the most part, against the idea of immigration controls but the US has them and they seem to be perceived as a good idea by the majority. In other words the representatives who passed the various immigration laws and rules are, broadly speaking, doing what they should in a democrcy - namely passing laws to satisfy the desires of their electrorates. Likewise in a democracy elected officials are expected to enforce the law as written not as they would like it to be and should expect some kind of blowback if they flagrantly violate it.