By Paul Friedrich
The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency is now publishing (in response to a presidential executive order) and making available to the public a listing of nonfederal jurisdictions that are releasing alien prisoners in defiance of ICE detainer requests.
Sanctuary cities, counties and states, as well as others, receive the request for short-term detention for the purpose of giving ICE time to pick up an illegal alien who is usually known to be, or to have been, involved in criminal activity. Often the refusal is grounded in claiming hardship in the form of crowded facilities and such, but they are consistent, not random, disregard for cooperation. The report can be found at https://tinyurl.com/ICEdetainerReport.
I don’t recall The Daily Herald having made us aware of Snohomish County’s policy to decline all detention requests from ICE, the policy having been developed by the county sheriff’s office in April 2014, but fading memory is possible.
ICE reports that during the week of Jan. 28 thru Feb. 3 Snohomish County declined to honor 12 detention requests. That tied them with Montgomery, Iowa for fourth place in the nation, behind only Clark, Nevada; Nassau, New York; and Cook, Illinois. Twelve out of 3,083 requests issued isn’t many, so this is not to imply that the county is overrun with illegal alien criminals. But, fourth place in the nation for defiance of federal alien policy controls?
Was allowing the sheriff to apparently unilaterally develop this policy deliberate on the part of county fathers, to let the sheriff take it on the chin when this boomerangs, or is it their lack of oversight of the sheriff’s department?
President Trump, like it or not, is already making noises about withholding federal funds to sanctuary jurisdictions. Federal funding has allowed law enforcement agencies over the entire country to militarize their departments for a reason — control the population when necessary — that includes ICE actions. And, that’s only part of the federal funds provided to Snohomish County. Slapping the hand that feeds you is not ever a good idea and somebody needs to get word to the governor of this state, the mayors of our cities and county governments to knock off this defiance before we all end up in bankruptcy.
This is not just a matter of money, however, and it is not simply a matter of states’ rights, or local control. It’s a matter of citizens, politicians and governmental employees, dishonoring enforcement of legitimate legislated policy as a matter of “social justice” as seen by the opinion holder.
This is not an attack on liberalism, but a call to reason before we cut off our nose to spite our face. When the governor, a mayor, a sheriff, or other authority take it upon themselves to decide such issues unilaterally and without regard to consequences, how can we expect citizen respect for the law to be universal?
Paul Friedrich lives on Camano Island.
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