Magic, or sleight-of-hand, is the art of misdirection. The successful magician compels the audience to look one way, while working the trick off to one side, often in plain sight. Such is the intent of Texas Gov. Rick Perry, demanding we focus on the non-problem of "sanctuary cities," pulling our attention away from the budget crater into which Texas is poised to fall.
Like "anchor babies," the term "sanctuary cities" is the kind of phrase you can't really put your finger on, other than to say it has something to do with immigration and must be bad. When pressed, Perry was unable to define it, other than to make a Zen-like reference to ill-fitting shoes.
The "sanctuary" part comes from the Sanctuary Movement of the 1980s, in which churches gave shelter to asylum seekers fleeing the wars in Central America. The churches found scriptural authority for the practice in ancient Greek and Roman texts, and in the Old Testament. The feds, unimpressed by scripture and instead using federal criminal law, sent several movement activists to the pen for "harboring."
As the Central American wars wound down, the Sanctuary Movement cooled as well, but the notion of a type of safe haven for immigrants took hold, and a few cities enacted policies designed to keep local police focused on enforcing local criminal laws, not federal immigration law. Many local police chiefs supported the idea, hoping crime victims and witnesses would feel free to rely on the police no matter what their immigration status. A typical example of such a policy is the L.A.P.D.'s "Special Order 40" (actually dating back to 1979), under which "officers shall not initiate police action with the objective of discovering the alien status of a person."
While many cities still have such policies in force, some (including L.A.'s Special Order 40) are under political and legal attack, as more localities try to fill the "enforcement gap" caused by the feds' failure to enforce existing law, and Congress' failure to enact comprehensive reform. These local efforts are meeting stiff legal resistance: so far most courts say the field of immigration is "preempted" by federal law.
At the same time, some states and cities have partnered with ICE in specific "287(g)" programs, named after the federal statute enabling the feds to train state and local cops in how to enforce some federal immigration laws. (A recent excursion on Long Island suggests more training may be in order, at least on the ICE side.) Recall that in a hearing of the House Homeland Security Committee, former DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff, said, "I'm not aware of any city, although I may be wrong, that actually interferes with our ability to enforce the law."
During the 2010 Texas gubernatorial campaign, the GOP targeted the Democratic candidate, former Houston mayor Bill White, for making Houston a "sanctuary city." PolitiFact Texas rated the charge "False."
In 2008 Texas legislators asked the state's attorney general, Greg Abbott, for his opinion on the state legislature's power to block Texas cities from becoming "sanctuary cities." Abbott responded in 2009, saying the answer to the question depends on federal preemption law, a question now before the U.S. Supreme Court in the U.S. Chamber of Commerce v. Whiting case.
The tragedy of Rick Perry's magic trick is Texas' "downward spiral" in quality of life and economic competitiveness. Gov. Perry and the incoming state legislators seem unwilling or unable to come to grips with the link between economic growth and public dollars spent on public education. Let's hope the house lights come on before the curtain comes down.
