In recent years, immigration and the security of our nation has come to the frontlines of our leaders’ political promises and citizens’ concerns. Among these concerns is the one with sanctuary cities, or areas with no formal definition other than trouble.  Yigal’s presentation and the authors of the readings and cases focused on and brought up interesting critiques of  state laws as opposed to federal, and whether these cities are truly allowing for “criminals to go free,” as many conservatives often argue. They pointed to specifics of the 10th amendment, stating that by law, the federal government cannot force a state government to enforce a law. Furthermore, it explains that as long as the policy being enacted is consistent with the NY constitution, the individual counties may choose how to enforce laws. This is amendment was brought up largely due to the new administration signing an executive order to stop federal funding to any city that is found to be a sanctuary city.

After being able to agree that an executive order going directly against the Constitution may have not been the best way of going about it, a large debate had begun. The question of whether or not sanctuary cities allow for criminals to go free, leading to future crimes that can be avoided if the individual was initially deported, took a larger presence in the room than I had thought. Opponents of this idea in higher favor of these cities argued a different point; while it may have been a crime to overstay their welcome in this country, these people should have the same access to American rights once they’re here and be tried and taken as just as American as the rest of us. Personally, these oppositions didn’t sit well with me for a variety of reasons.  Firstly, not every immigrant should have the right to our country, because they cannot contribute as much to the system as many believe. Excluding the criminal status, there should be a merit-based system in which if the individual immigrant may prove that they can add to the American economy through skilled labor, they may stay after paying a large sum in taxes. While this may seem harsh, this is no different than the very way in which we were selected for our Honors Program. You work hard throughout life so you may be rewarded for it, I don’t believe that a county or state law should just excuse a lack of work ethics on the basis that “it’s the right thing to do.” Screening the immigrants based on merits would effectively increase the quality of the standard of Americans overall.

In terms of sanctuary cities increasing the number of criminals, I agree that on a very small scale, if you allow anyone with immigrant status to remain here past their return date, there are bound to be more people likely to a shadier background. However, there were too often slippery slope arguments in which it was just assumed that crime rates were skyrocketing with the arrival of a group of immigrants. According to an analysis of FBI crime data, there is actually a lower rate of ALL crimes, specifically because these cities are being so carefully monitored by the state. Additionally, something that was brought up that I had not formerly considered was the reporting of crimes and how such laws may affect crime rate in this way. To expand on this, the International Association of Chiefs of Police said that even if state law has jurisdiction, neither state nor local laws should determine civil immigration laws, for simple fear of loss of both legal and illegal immigrants reporting or even assisting in the investigation of criminal activities.

Overall, the debate on sanctuary cities is a debate on human morality and who gets to wield the “god complex,” of lawmaking. Obviously, sanctuary cities may remain within our national boundaries and may never even have any affect on our country. But this isn’t a question of affect anymore ; this is really a question of who gets to decide who stays and who goes. This goes far beyond any question of why they stayed in America, but rather, what makes them an American?