Tag: Sanctuary Cities

Attorney General Sessions’s absurd link between sanctuary policies and crimes in Chicago and Miami-Dade

The following article by Michelle Ye Hee Lee was posted on the Washington Post website August 21, 2017:

Credit: Cristobal Herrera/EPA

“So to all ‘sanctuary’ jurisdictions across the country, I say this: Miami-Dade is doing it, and so can you. Work with us to enforce a lawful immigration system that keeps us safe and serves our national interest. … We have already seen that: The same Independence Day weekend when Chicago suffered more than 100 shootings and 15 homicides, Miami-Dade also had a historic number of shooting deaths — zero. I hope more jurisdictions follow Miami-Dade’s leadership by choosing to follow the law, because we all want to do the same thing: protect our families and defend our country.”
— Attorney General Jeff Sessions, speech in Miami, Aug. 15, 2017

In an effort to crack down on “sanctuary” jurisdictions, the Trump administration pulled federal grant funding from cities and counties that do not cooperate with federal immigration efforts. Continue reading “Attorney General Sessions’s absurd link between sanctuary policies and crimes in Chicago and Miami-Dade”

Attorney General Jeff Sessions’s claim that ‘criminals take notice’ of cities with sanctuary policies

The following article by Michelle Ye Hee Lee was posted on the Washington Post site July 17, 2017:

Credit: AP Photo/Brynn Anderson

“When cities like Philadelphia, Boston, or San Francisco advertise that they have these policies, the criminals take notice. According to a recent study from the University of California Riverside, cities with these policies have more violent crime on average than those that don’t.”
— Attorney General Jeff Sessions, speech on sanctuary cities in Las Vegas, July 12, 2017 

In a speech about “sanctuary cities,” Sessions cited research from University of California at Riverside that does not actually support his point. There is little research looking at the impact of sanctuary policies on crime. It’s a difficult correlation to study; many factors affect crime, and state and local law enforcement do not always track inmate citizenship status. Continue reading “Attorney General Jeff Sessions’s claim that ‘criminals take notice’ of cities with sanctuary policies”

Jeff Sessions used our research to claim that sanctuary cities have more crime. He’s wrong.

The following article by Loren Collingwood and Benjamin Gonzalez-O’Brien was posted on the Washington Post website July 14, 2017:

Attorney General Jeff Sessions waits before speaking to federal, state and local law enforcement officials about sanctuary cities and efforts to combat violent crime on July 12 in Las Vegas. (John Locher/AP)

On Wednesday, Attorney General Jeff Sessions gave a speech in Las Vegas on sanctuary cities and local law enforcement. He announced, “According to a recent study from the University of California, Riverside, cities with these policies have more violent crime on average than those that don’t.” Almost certainly, the reference is to our study, which we first published here at the Monkey Cage in The Washington Post last October and later in the academic outlet Urban Affairs Review.

The attorney general’s summation of our study, however, is not true. In fact, our study suggests a different conclusion: Municipalities that chose to designate themselves as sanctuary cities for undocumented immigrants experience crime rates no higher than they otherwise would. We state this clearly throughout our study. Continue reading “Jeff Sessions used our research to claim that sanctuary cities have more crime. He’s wrong.”

The Effects of Sanctuary Policies on Crime and the Economy

The following article by Tom K. Wong was posted on the Center for American Progress website January 26, 2017:

AP/Gerald Herbert
The historic Treme section of New Orleans, October 2012.

Introduction and summary

As the Trump administration begins to implement its immigration policy agenda, the issue of local assistance with federal immigration enforcement officials is back in the spotlight. So-called sanctuary jurisdictions are one focus of that debate. Sanctuary counties—as defined by this report—are counties that do not assist federal immigration enforcement officials by holding people in custody beyond their release date.1 Using an Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, dataset obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request filed by the Immigrant Legal Resource Center,2 the analyses in this report provide new insights about how sanctuary counties perform across a range of social and economic indicators when compared to non-sanctuary counties. Continue reading “The Effects of Sanctuary Policies on Crime and the Economy”