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.
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.
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.
-30-
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.
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