The Unintended Consequences of Sanctuary Cities

The City of Santa Cruz is in trouble, with the senseless deaths of Carl Reimer and Tyler Tenorio at the hands of gang members, and now the trashing of the Pacific Av business by so called Anarchist. There a single thread that tie these incidents together and that is Santa Cruz city status as a Sanctuary City. Now I am not saying there is a direct cause and effect here, there might be, but that will not be known unless all parties have been identified. What I am saying is the Sanctuary City status has created the environment, where these crimes are allowed to fester.

When a city designates itself a Sanctuary City, it is arbitrarily creating a protected class. As it does so it propagates the notion that America is a country of arbitrary rights not a country of laws. The 14^th Amendment made it quite clear, that in the eyes of the law, all are equal. But the Sanctuary City movement circumvents that concept by saying the city is going to ignore the law in the case of this protected class. Once this has been done, there is nothing to stop other groups to declare themselves as a protective class. This has already happened with the anarchist groups, who view their agenda so important that they can ignore the law and cause wanton vandalism. One should not confuse Sanctuary City movement terror groups that advocate vandalism and violence, with civil disobedience. The purpose of civil disobedience is to challenge a law, not ignore it. The heroes of the civil rights movement, using non-violence, challenged the powers that be to arrests them and did not cover their faces to hide their identity; the civil rights marchers were courageous and nothing like the cowards of today.

Finally, it is not racist to say that the Sanctuary City movement adds to gang violence and ties the hand of the police. It is a common event for police officers to run across gang members that are classified as “Previously Deported Felons” and are unable to do anything but complete a contact card. In order to detain these criminals for ICE, the police would have to contact ICE to place a hold; but, the police are directed not to contact or cooperate with ICE. We know that the majority of illegal immigrants have come to America to improve their station in life and not join criminal street gangs. So if we accept that premise, how can the city counsel in good conscious not allow the police to turn these criminals over to ICE once they have been identified?

John Adams believed, “the very definition of a republic is 'an empire of laws, and not of men.” This is not a callous belief that the government is always right and the people must cower to it's authority. Just the opposite, it means justice is blind and no one is above the law. When you try and skirt the law with Sanctuary Cities, you reap the unintended consequences the rule of law, by definition, eliminates.