Federal bureaucracy, red tape – is that the key to thwarting sanctuary cities?

It has long been the conservative ideologue manner for dealing with abortion – a medical procedure they’re determined to view as criminal, but which sensible people do not.

Just another step in Trump's efforts … 

They have their similar-minded elected officials push for policies and regulations that make a person’s ability to obtain the procedure so much of a burden that it effectively makes it impossible for many women to obtain – even if it remains in the law books.

IT SEEMS THAT the ideologues are taking a similar approach to immigration; specifically to the notion of Sanctuary Cities. As in the concept that federal immigration officials ought to do their own work in enforcing federal policies that are overly harsh, and shouldn’t be able to draft local law enforcement into doing their leg work.

It seems they’re once again trying to mess with the federal funds that many local police departments rely upon to fund their efforts. Almost as though they’re saying cities are free to declare themselves sanctuaries from the ideological nonsense that has taken over our federal immigration policies.

But those cities can count on being messed with in ways that it will make it difficult, if not impossible, to do the jobs that actually are within their listed responsibilities.

That certainly is happening in Chicago, where on Friday the city felt compelled to file a lawsuit yet again against the U.S. government for messing with the funds the Chicago Police Department expect to get. And that, in fact, every police department gets.

EXCEPT THAT IN this Age of Trump, officials want to withhold as their way of pressuring Chicago into accepting a more intolerant attitude toward “all those foreigners” whom they’re determined to believe are the root cause of all the problems our society faces.

Because once again, Chicago is being forced to fight for its share of the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant funds – a program that has become a significant part of the federal government’s efforts to help bolster local law enforcement.

Which is something that President Donald J. Trump always claims he’s interested in doing whenever he goes on yet another of his nonsensical rants about how messed up he thinks Chicago is.

… to bully Chicago and Rahm Emanuel into submission

But yet what does he actually do? Trump has talks with singer Kanye West about a whole lot of nonsensical babble, while messing with the funding that might help local police to do more in addressing crime.

THIS PARTICULAR ISSUE is pathetic in so many ways – largely because it occurred a year ago.

Chicago had to take legal action in order to get its share of grant monies, and a U.S. District judge wound up ruling in the city’s favor that federal demands requiring city and Cook County jail officials notify them of every inmate they were holding who had questionable immigration status were not sufficient cause for the feds to withhold some $2 million from the Chicago Police Department.

Yet it seems the Justice Department is once again refusing to cough up the cash, as city officials still have yet to receive the letter confirming that they’ll get the money this year.

As though officials in this Age of Trump have decided they don’t want to pay attention to any court order. They’re going to persist in pursuing their ideologically-motivated policies whose long-range intent are to make certain people feel so unwelcome in this country that they’ll want to leave.

ALMOST LIKE THAT “self-deporting” nonsense talk that came up during the presidential campaign of 2012. It’s as if this goes beyond anything that Trump says or thinks, and has become a part of the Republican platform for addressing the issue.

Ought to think before rants about bullying

Ignore those people who won’t do what they’re told, and maybe they’ll just give up.

It will be interesting to see how long it takes the courts to issue an order forcing the federal government to cough up Chicago’s share of the proceeds. It’s not like there’s anything new this year that didn’t apply last year.

As for whether the same nonsense will occur again next year, most likely it will. That may be the ultimate reason that strong turnout come Nov. 6 (and again in 2020) is so important – perhaps the so-called “silent majority” needs to be reminded their guy got 3 million fewer votes in 2016 – and that they’re really a loud-mouthed minority whose ideological bigotry doesn’t belong in the 21^st Century.

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