On Sanctuary Cities, Hillary Clinton Joins Hands With Donald Trump
The San Francisco woman's shooting death by an undocumented immigrant triggers bipartisan hypocrisy
When it comes to the confederate flag, Republicans are all for states rights. But when it comes to so-called
"sanctuary cities" (that refuse to make a mockery of the Fourth Amendment and turn undocumented workers to the feds for deportation), they want Uncle Sam to club them with the Statute of Liberty itself. And so it is with the recent tragic shooting of a 31-year-old California woman by a clearly nuts undocumented immigrant. Ignoring that cities with a high-undocumented population tend to be the safest, as Radley Balko, Steve Chapman and I have repeatedly documented, Republicans cranked up their outrage machine, blaming the death on San Francisco's "sanctuary policies." Rand Paul, a civil libertarian, condemned the city and rallied his liberty-loving foot soldiers to launch a "revolution" to "secure the border" – never mind that creating an army of Minutemen on the border preventing willing employers from hiring willing workers, for example, is in no way, shape or form compatible with a government of limited and enumerated powers that respects the civil liberties of Americans. Jeb Bush, who is trying to strike a moderate tone on the issue in his party, also accused such policies of encouraging crime.
And then of course there was the voice of Solomon himself, Donald Trump, who jumped on the incident as a vindication of his recent remarks that Mexicans who come to America are criminals and rapists.
But none of this compares to the outright hypocrisy of Democrats Diane Feinstein and Hillary Clinton, I point out in my latest column at The Week. I note:
Feinstein, who has long posed as a friend of immigration and Latinos, denounced San Francisco, and scolded it to join the federal Priority Enforcement Program — apparently unaware of the fact that San Francisco has joined this program for the simple reason that it is mandatory. And Clinton, who during her previous presidential run had strongly (and rightly) condemned a federal crackdown on sanctuary cities such as San Francisco, has now declared that she has "absolutely no support" for a city that defies federal deportation rules.
This whole characterization is nonsense. The notion that a city would willfully release a dangerous felon — citizen or immigrant, legal or illegal — simply to spite Uncle Sam is totally ludicrous.
So what exactly happened and why are "sanctuary" cities not to blame?
Go here to find out.