Chicago calling Trump’s bluff when it comes to matter of sanctuary cities?

The Chicago City Council is showing no signs of giving in to xenophobic-motivated pressures to give up its self-appointed designation as a “sanctuary city,” which means our local police and other officials won’t turn over information they acquire about people to federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials.
 

EMANUEL: Calling presidential bluff?

A non-citizen whose immigration status is less than certain won’t have to face the prospect of deportation because they got caught speeding or making an improper right turn. In fact, city officials on Wednesday announced an intent to create a new kind of identification card that would give legitimacy to all Chicago residents, regardless of their citizenship status.

NOW WHY DOES it matter that Chicago, a sanctuary city for decades, is keeping this status – along with Cook County and suburbs such as Cicero, Evanston and Oak Park?

It is because we’re in the Age of Trump where we have a presidential-type who made it clear early on he wants to use immigration as a way of scoring cheap political points for himself.

Not that he’s interested in doing the serious reform that would make sense of our nation’s immigration regulations. Heck, that would be even more difficult to fix than trying to redo health care reform. And we all have seen how incompetently the Trump types handled that issue.

But Trump has said he wants municipalities to knock off this “sanctuary city” nonsense; as he views it. If they don’t, he’s prepared to crack down on them. Earlier this week, Attorney General Jeff Sessions talked of “clawing back” the funds the federal government provides to support law enforcement efforts.

TRUMP: Will he unleash his wrath?

THAT’S MANY MILLIONS of dollars, depending on whose analysis one chooses to trust.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel seems to be basing his continued resistance on the premise that it would be unconstitutional for the federal government to withhold funding for these purposes. There are many attorneys who would agree with him. Municipal officials in Seattle on Wednesday filed a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration's actions.

Although the key will be if the Trump types can find a judge who’s willing to find a legal basis to go along with the withholding. Just because Trump has yet to find a sympathetic judge for his travel restrictions doesn’t mean he will give up on this issue.

The tricky part of all this is that Trump, when he’s not bashing Mexicans as “rapists” and “drug dealers,” is going about smacking around Chicago as the place where endless murders take place. Even though if you look at the crime statistics, there are other places where one is more likely to be at risk of physical violence.

THE PRESIDENT HAS threatened to take action to have the federal government get involved in Chicago, which has led to some local types trying to pre-empt Trump trash talk by welcoming federal involvement.

Send more federal funds to support efforts that could reduce the flow of handguns and other weapons amongst the public and also the presence of narcotics – which often are the motivation for people resorting to such violence.

So what’s it going to be?

Will Trump really start cutting off funding to Chicago at a time when some people think that a serious approach to dealing with the city’s urban violence is to give it a boost? I notice that Trump met this week with Fraternal Order of Police Chicago chapter President Dean Angelo (and NOT police or city officials), who afterwards made vague statements about how “the administration is going to work with us.”

IT WOULDN’T SURPRISE me if Trump made some sort of cut, because I always was skeptical that Trump really cared about the situation in the parts of Chicago that never would have had any contact with his riverfront hotel. Chicago is something he can use to take rhetorical potshots and work up his rural base of supporters.

Nothing more.

If anything seeing Trump make such cuts based on “sanctuary cities” would prove how unserious the man is about dealing with issues. Because dealing with issues is hard work.

All the Trump presidency seems to be about is that old orange guy continuously bellowing about how your (you being a grouchy, middle-aged white guy) problems in life are somebody else’s fault! While we don’t do a thing to resolve them.

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FREEMAN-WILSON: Sympathetic

EDITOR’S NOTE: Gary, Ind., is NOT a sanctuary city, yet Mayor Karen Freeman-Wilson expressed a sympathetic attitude on the issue – or at least one that will be bound to offend the sensibilities of the nativist elements of our society who can't comprehend anything that deviates from their narrow vision of what things should be like.

Obama arrival a plug for Gary airport?

It was amusing to see the arrival of President Barack Obama for a couple of days of activity this week in the Midwest.

 

The president will be in Princeton, Ind., at a steel mill on Friday, following a day of activity in Chicago and suburban Evanston in part to prop up the campaign of Gov. Pat Quinn.

 

YET ALL THIS began Wednesday night when Obama arrived on Air Force One at the airport in Gary, Ind. (which likes to give itself the impressive-sounding Gary/Chicago International Airport even though the number of flights operating there is miniscule).

 

Much has been made of the fact that the airport was used because of the fire at the FAA facility in Aurora that still causes disruptions at O’Hare International and Midway airports. The president didn’t want to cause anything that could be construed by the ideologues as more congestion at either of those airports.

 

So his flight landed at Gary, where he immediately got into a helicopter that wound up taking him into Chicago and transporting him for much of his trip in the metropolitan area.

 

Although the fact that he was only in Gary for a few minutes didn’t stop that city’s mayor, Karen Freeman-Wilson, and Sen. Joe Donnelly, D-Ind., from greeting Obama at the Hoosier airport and acting as though this was a trip to Indiana rather than just a quick transfer point.

 

THE MAYOR MADE comments to the press about how it only makes sense for the president to use the Gary airport when traveling to Chicago, on account of the fact that it is our city’s third airport.

 

Even though some of us want to cling to the idea of a third airport being built in what is now farm field in rural Will County just north of Peotone, others of us would want to see a new airport built anywhere but south of the city, and still others of us would rather there be no new airport.

 

Either because they want a massive expansion of O’Hare International or because they’d rather just discourage more flights passing through the Chicago area – not realizing the degree to which that would devastate the metropolitan area and turn Chicago from something that can be talked about along with New York and Los Angeles to something that more resembles Indianapolis or Des Moines, Iowa.

 

Personally, I always thought an expansion of that Gary facility would have made sense. It is a shame that officials couldn’t reach some understanding a couple of decades ago to move in that direction when trying to figure out a site for a new Chicago-area airport.

 

BUT WAY TOO many political people felt like then-Secretary of State George Ryan, who came right out and said he could not, in good conscience, vote to support any new airport located in Indiana. Even though one can note that the New York metro area’s third airport is based out of Newark, N.J. – and no one seems bothered by that fact!

 

The end result is that the Gary facility kind of lingers in limbo. It seems like we’re always reading stories about cut-rate airlines operating a few flights out of the airport (remember Hooters Air?), only to shut them down a few months later when a lack of significant passengers develops for their use.

 

Who’s to say if Chicago ever will have a third airport? Will this issue linger for another few decades of inactivity?

 

Did the president wind up giving an inadvertent advertising plug for those people who promote the idea of Gary (designated as airport GYY) as a part of Chicago’s transportation infrastructure? Or was Wednesday just the moment Mayor Freeman got to shake hands with the president?

 

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