(Bloomberg Businessweek) -- As Republicans and Democrats in Washington battle over immigration, the real war is being waged at the state and local level, where police and politicians have to weigh the needs of their communities against President Trump’s agenda to crack down on undocumented immigrants. The country’s two most populous states, California and Texas, offer competing visions of how to deal with long-established immigrant communities in the Age of Trump.
California’s Democratic governor, Jerry Brown, has given the entire state sanctuary status, blocking local officials from complying with federal immigration directives. His Republican counterpart in Texas, Governor Greg Abbott, has done the opposite—signing a law criminalizing local officials who shelter undocumented immigrants from deportation. While the laws are in line with the states’ different views on immigration, they illustrate the polarizing impact of Trump’s anti-immigration rhetoric. “California is as deep blue as Texas is deep red,” says Cal Jillson, a professor of political science at Southern Methodist University. Even so, “in pre-Trump America,” the laws “wouldn’t have been possible.”
In April a San Francisco federal court became the first to block Attorney General Jeff Sessions from delivering on his threat to withhold federal funds from cities that refuse to hand over to federal agents any undocumented immigrants charged with a crime. On Jan. 2, the day after the California law took effect, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Acting Director Thomas Homan issued a threat. “California better hold on tight,” he said on Fox News. “We’ve got to take them to court. We’ve got to start charging some of these politicians with crimes.” Since then, tensions have risen over reports that ICE is preparing to launch the Trump administration’s largest undocumented immigrant sweep yet, with plans to arrest some 1,500 residents. Its primary target is the San Francisco Bay Area, according to an agency official who asked not to be identified.
California Democratic Senators Dianne Feinstein and Kamala Harris asked Homan for a briefing on the agency’s plans for the state. Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf has said she’s prepared to go to jail if she’s forced to defy an ICE raid, and California Attorney General Xavier Becerra has threatened to prosecute anyone who violates the state’s sanctuary law.
In Texas, the state is in court with its four biggest cities. After Abbott signed the anti-sanctuary order into law in May, it was swiftly challenged by a pair of border communities. The dispute was eventually joined by Austin, Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio, all led by Democratic mayors. The case is now before the New Orleans-based Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. The court’s ruling is likely to have influence over a broad swath of the South and a pair of swing states. Attorneys general from 11 states in the South and Midwest, including Alabama, Georgia, Michigan, Missouri, and Oklahoma, have all supported Texas in the court challenge. “Sheriffs all over the country have been watching this case,” says Jessica Vaughn of the Center for Immigration Studies, a think tank that advocates restricting immigration. “It’s a proxy battle of national significance.”
“This is bad public policy that has nothing to do with public safety and everything to do with political theater”
The fight between Abbott and the state’s big cities began before Trump took office. In 2015 the governor began criticizing some local law enforcement agencies for their handling of undocumented immigrants. Among his first targets was Dallas County Sheriff Lupe Valdez, who refused to honor ICE detainer requests unless they were directed at violent offenders. Valdez, the first openly gay sheriff elected in Texas, resigned in December. Along with seven other Democrats, she’s running against Abbott, who’s up for reelection this year.
Elected officials across Texas say the law endangers their residents. Many immigrants have stopped bringing their children for vaccinations at Austin’s public-health clinics, and fewer women are reporting assaults and rapes at local crisis centers and to police, says Mayor Steve Adler. “Those things make us less safe,” he says. In Houston, the number of Hispanics reporting rapes fell 43 percent, while those reporting other violent crimes fell 13 percent.
“This is bad public policy that has nothing to do with public safety and everything to do with political theater,” says Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo. While complying with all state and federal immigration laws, Acevedo has been a critic of the sanctuary ban. He’s started a public education effort through social media and holds town halls in English and Spanish with civic groups. His mission: Spread the word that Texas’ anti-sanctuary statute forbids officers from asking victims and witnesses of crimes about their immigration status.
Texas’ attorney general is investigating San Antonio Police Chief William McManus for possibly breaking the state’s anti-sanctuary law when he freed a dozen undocumented immigrants from a smuggler’s tractor-trailer in late December. McManus says cops interviewed the group, and federal agents on-site didn’t intervene before the immigrants were released to a religious charity.
Sally Hernandez, the sheriff for Travis County, which includes Austin, has also clashed with the state. When she took office in February 2017, she announced that her staff wouldn’t automatically detain inmates on behalf of ICE unless they’d been charged with murder, human trafficking, or kidnapping. She says she pursued that policy to make the community safer and more inclusive, yet she quickly drew the ire of Abbott, who nicknamed her “Sanctuary Sally” and cut off more than $1.5 million in state funds. After Abbott signed the anti-sanctuary order into law, Hernandez relented and now honors all ICE detainer requests. “I still have a big knot in my stomach,” she says. Meanwhile, she’s distributing pamphlets for so-called U visas, which can temporarily shield immigrants from deportation if they’re victims or witnesses of crime.
Back in California, one of 79 national centers created after Sept. 11 to coordinate federal and local law enforcement activities is in the middle of ICE’s conflict with the state. If there’s a big immigration raid in the Bay Area, ICE officers could find themselves without the support of local police because of the state’s sanctuary law. “There is no middle ground for anyone right now,” says Mike Sena, director of the Northern California center. “It creates a dangerous paradigm.”(Updated on March 8 to clarify the timing of Sheriff Sally Hernandez’s policy shift to start honoring ICE detainer requests)
To contact the authors of this story: Kartikay Mehrotra in San Francisco at kmehrotra2@bloomberg.net, Laurel Brubaker Calkins in New York at lcalkins@bloomberg.net, Lauren Etter in Austin at letter1@bloomberg.net, Ben Elgin in San Francisco at belgin@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Matthew Philips at mphilips3@bloomberg.net.
©2018 Bloomberg L.P.
