Albuquerque mayor rails against ‘sanctuary’ label
Santa Fe New Mexican – Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Thursday launched another salvo in his campaign against communities that have adopted immigrant-friendly policies, telling four U.S. cities — including Albuquerque — his Department of Justice might deny them new federal crime-fighting resources if they do not prove they will offer sufficient cooperation with federal immigration authorities.
One problem: Albuquerque is not a so-called sanctuary city.
The Justice Department missive prompted Albuquerque Mayor Richard Berry to write to Sessions to tout his city’s collaboration with federal immigration agents. Pushing back at Sessions’ comments about the danger of sanctuary jurisdictions, the Republican mayor emphasized his is not one.
Berry in 2010 rescinded the city’s sanctuary policy and enacted guidelines to facilitate “a narrow and focused partnership” with Immigration and Customs Enforcement that allows agents “access” to people arrested for crimes at the city’s Prisoner Transport Center.
Nonetheless, the Justice Department on Thursday morning singled out New Mexico’s largest city — along with Baltimore, San Bernardino, Calif., and Stockton, Calif. — in letters that inquired about each city’s “commitment to reducing violent crime stemming from illegal immigration.”
Rhiannon Samuel, spokeswoman for Berry, said, “We are delving into why the feds would believe we are a sanctuary city for criminals when we have repeatedly said we are not.”
A Justice Department representative resisted that characterization.
“That’s not at all what we’re saying,” said Devin O’Malley, a department spokesman.
He said the Thursday letters have “nothing to do with what we think about these cities.” They are part of the department’s evaluation of the four cities for admittance to the new Public Safety Partnership program, O’Malley said, rather than a statement or suggestion about each city’s immigration policies.
“We’re just making sure the cities that want to become part of the Public Safety Partnership program are committed to reducing violent crime and protecting public safety,” he said.
The partnership program, launched earlier this summer, will deploy federal assistance to local communities to address gun violence, gang-related crime and drug trafficking.
Asked whether the dozen cities that already have joined the partnership program were sent similar letters, O’Malley said “considerations” of cooperative policies regarding illegal immigration “were taken into account.”
The letters delivered Thursday ask each city seeking to join the program to demonstrate by Aug. 18 that it is committed to reducing crime “stemming from illegal immigration.”
Specifically, Sessions’ agency wants to know whether the cities have rules in place to grant federal immigrant agents access to correctional or detention facilities, whether such facilities notify federal agents of the scheduled release date of an “alien” suspect at least 48 hours in advance and whether facilities would honor written requests to hold foreign nationals for up to 48 hours beyond scheduled release dates.
Berry, in his response, wrote, “Let me begin by emphasizing that Albuquerque, New Mexico, is not a city that in your words ‘protects criminals from immigrant enforcement’ and therefore we are not, in your words, a ‘sanctuary’ city.”
Berry said Immigration and Customs Enforcement staffing at the city Prisoner Transport Center had “decreased and ultimately stopped.”
He also said the Albuquerque Police Department does not have the resources to enforce federal immigration law and that any ICE agents that might screen criminal arrestees at the Prisoner Transport Center may “not engage in racial or other profiling” or interview victims or witnesses.
Meanwhile, the move to make federal resources contingent on immigration cooperation inflamed Democrats, immigrant activists and civil rights groups in the state.
“Sessions is now trying to bully the city of Albuquerque into becoming complicit in the targeting and persecuting of immigrant families,” said Rachel LaZar of El Centro, an Albuquerque-based Latino community organization.
Community organizer Marian Mendéz Cara decried “the impact that Mayor Berry’s shameful, Trump-like policies had when he invited ICE into the prisoner transport center — leading to the separation of our families as a result of a simple traffic violation.”
Micah McCoy, spokesman for the state chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, said the Justice Department letter amounted to an ultimatum that would “make misery in the lives of immigrant families” and hamper local law enforcement efforts.
“Jeff Sessions doesn’t know what’s best for our city,” McCoy said.
U.S. Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham, an Albuquerque Democrat who is running for governor, criticized the Justice Department’s “political directive.” Asking local officers to do more to enforce federal immigration laws, she said in a statement, “threatens to make cities like Albuquerque less safe.”
Damon Martinez, who was U.S. attorney for New Mexico until March, when he was asked to resign by Sessions, tweeted that the letter was “outrageous and completely opposite the [Justice Department] I knew for 16 years.”
Martinez, who is seeking the Democratic nomination for Lujan Grisham’s congressional seat, added the hashtag #gladtheyfiredme.
Sessions in his brief tenure as attorney general has charted a more conservative course for the nation’s top law enforcement agency. Crackdowns on violent crime as well as illegal immigration have taken root at the center of his agenda. Sessions has put the screws to cities that have adopted a hands-off approach to helping enforce federal immigration laws, warning more than once they could lose federal funding.
“These policies are driven by politics and do not protect their citizens,” Sessions said Thursday. “We will fight them with every lawful tool available.”
Sessions’ latest measure would appear to have no immediate impact on Santa Fe — a longtime sanctuary city whose mayor, Javier Gonzales, has previously countered Sessions’ threats to withhold grant funding by saying the capital city’s policies are not in violation of any law.
Santa Fe joined an amicus brief with more than 30 other cities and counties earlier this year in a lawsuit seeking to spike President Donald Trump’s executive order aimed at withholding funds from sanctuary cities.
City spokesman Matt Ross said Santa Fe was not planning to gain entry to the Public Safety Partnership. “Even if we were, I don’t think there would be interest in changing our policies,” he said.
Contact Tripp Stelnicki at 505-428-7626 or tstelnicki@sfnewmexican.com.
Source: US Government Class
