President Trump has been accused of “cruelty” and using people as political pawns in dealing with immigration issues. The president recently announced that he is considering sending immigrants to sanctuary cities, prompting US mayors to accept such an offer as the battle over border security raged.
An idea floated by President Donald Trump to exact revenge on Democratic foes could end up doing the migrants a favour by placing them in locations that make it easier to put down roots and stay in the country. These include cities like San Francisco, New York and Chicago.
Many of these locations have more resources to help immigrants make their legal cases to stay in the United States than smaller cities.The plan would put thousands of immigrants in cities that are not only welcoming to them, but also more likely to rebuff federal officials carrying out deportation orders.
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Trump tweeted: “Due to the fact that Democrats are unwilling to change our very dangerous immigration laws, we are indeed, as reported, giving strong considerations to placing Illegal Immigrants in Sanctuary Cities only.... The Radical Left always seems to have an Open Borders, Open Arms policy — so this should make them very happy!”
On the downside however, the immigrants could be weighed down by high cost of living in the cities. Democrats have said that this move is Trump's yet another extreme measures to curb legal and illegal immigration.
“With immigrants being less likely to commit crimes than the US-born population, and with sanctuary jurisdictions being safer and more productive than non-sanctuary jurisdictions, the data damns this proposal as a politically motivated stunt that seeks to play politics with peoples’ lives,” said George Gascon, district attorney for San Francisco.
According to an analysis by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University, immigrants in sanctuary cities such as New York and Los Angeles are 20 per cent less likely to be arrested out in the community than in cities without such policies.
Romero, 27, was separated from his daughter, now 7, by federal authorities at the US border at El Paso, Texas, last year and jailed for three months before being released and making his way to live with his mother in San Jose, California. There he was reunited with his daughter, who attends public kindergarten.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican had told reporters that he wanted to launch bipartisan negotiations to seek solutions to the nation's immigration woes. Trump made the announcement post McConnell's announcement. Transporting the migrants to sanctuary cities do not exactly fall in line with immigration laws.
Flights chartered by ICE cost about USD 7,785 per flight hour, according to the agency, and require multiple staffers, including an in-flight medical professional. The agency also uses commercial flights. Doing longer transports would increase liability for the agency, especially considering that many of the immigrants in its care are families with young children.
The Trump administration actually has plenty of jail space to detain families. As of April 11, the nation's three facilities to detain immigrant families were nowhere near capacity.
The idea to send immigrants had been considered couple of times in recent momnths but was rejected by the White House and Department of Homeland Security.
It's also unclear how long the immigrants would stay in these cities because they are required to provide an address to federal authorities — typically of a family member — as a condition of their release.
