The term Sanctuary Cities has been in the news intermittently over the last few years, often with people having different understandings of what these cities actually are doing. Within his first week President Trump's Administration issued an executive order to push so called "sanctuary cities" to follow federal orders for detaining illegal immigrants. Shortly after the order was released many of these cities, like Chicago, responded, saying they wouldn't be following the orders.
The big challenge with an order like this is determining who has the responsibility, and who has the authority. The fundamental issue in question is whether these cities will follow Federal orders to detain illegal immigrants who have not committed any other crime outside of being in the country illegally. Opponents of the order argue that such a detainment is unconstitutional in many cases, and that they want to be on the side of constitutionally appropriate actions. Proponents of the order argue that to ignore federal immigration orders to detain illegal immigrants is equally problematic. Miami's Mayor already reversed the city's previous course, ordering local law enforcement to comply with federal detainment orders. Other major city Mayors, such as Rahm Emmanuel in Chicago, quickly responded by saying they would not follow through with the orders.
What President Trump has threatened, through his administration, is that the government would withhold federal funds from any city which fails to comply with the order. An initial review of the money that goes to the jurisdictions targeted by the Trump Administration shows that over 60% of the targeted funding goes to ten places, including California, Cook County Illinois, and the aforementioned Miami-Dade County. It is relatively easy to see that any substantial withholding of federal funds for these areas could quickly become problematic; one only needs to look at the way that the risk of losing federal funds in the past has driven states to a uniform drinking age and to federally approved maximum speed limits. Money drives everything, and the Federal Government's funds make most local and state jurisdictions run. We like to say that we give power to the states, but in spite of the 10th Amendment to the Constitution the Federal Government carries a big stick in terms of funding, and historically it has been willing to use it liberally.
A major question which has been raised in the aftermath of the Executive Order related to detaining illegal immigrants: who is responsible for paying for the care of individuals who are detained in this way? Miami's Mayor has raised the stakes, calling on the Trump Administration to fund his city's enforcement of Federal requests. Based on early responses it doesn't appear to me that the Trump Administration has given this order, or the ramifications of the order, full thought. The Administration seems fixated on pushing out orders which in some way, shape or form fulfill his many campaign promises, but in many of these instances there appears to have been little to no clear thought given to how to implement the orders, or what the latent consequences of these orders would be. The recent drama centering around NAFTA, "the wall" and Mexico is one clear example of campaign rhetoric running head first into the complexities of governing. Another example was seen across days eight and nine in office, in response to his order halting admission into the US from seven Muslim majority countries. That order was quickly halted while the judiciary was able to look more fully into it, but the spill out of the order was exacerbated by a great deal of confusion as to what it meant, and how it was to be enforced. At a minimum it made the Administration appear unprepared and struggling to determine how to lead. At worst, for his Administration, it provided an early flash point for a diverse base that could lead an opposition movement to rally to.
At this point it is far too early to pass any uniform judgement on how this Administration will govern, or what their true motives are. That said, it doesn't feel like much of a reach to look at the level of chaos and confusion which has followed many of these early orders and come to the conclusion that there are two leading possibilities. The first is that the Administration will learn from these early stumbles and will start to be more deliberate in designing these orders with planning for how they will roll out. The second is that this Administration, with its complete dearth of governing experience, will continue to allow these follies to permeate everything they do. The latter possibility, when coupled with President Trump's extremely well established thin skin, need to be "right," and impulsiveness, leads to a wealth of scary possibilities. There is a small rumbling within the GOP which indicates to me that some Republicans may fear this exact scenario. Time will tell if they develop the backbone to stand up to the Trump Administration, or if they will need things to get much worse before they do so in an attempt to save themselves, much like their historical predecessors did during the Nixon Administration.
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