Since 2010, conservatives have called for an “attrition through enforcement” approach to illegal immigration, in which local law enforcement and government agencies take the initiative to find those in the country without papers.
The strategy includes proposals to require workplaces to verify immigration status and to enact regulations that discourage settling into the normal routines of civic life – in other words, the exact opposite of the expanded services and sanctuary policies being offered by liberal jurisdictions.
Indeed, a number of conservative states, including Arizona, Alabama, Indiana, and others have passed so-called “show-me-your-papers” laws that require police to seek to determine whether a person stopped or arrested was an undocumented immigrant, if there was a “reasonable suspicion” that they may be.
Critics said this would be a form of racial profiling, but the Supreme Court upheld these provisions in 2012.
And states such as Tennessee, Georgia, and others also have laws forbidding their cities from instituting sanctuary policies. This year, Texas shelved such a measure, after opponents used a parliamentary tactic to thwart the legislation.
“Sanctuary policies are especially harmful when they let criminal immigrants be released back to the street instead of removed to their home country, giving them the opportunity to continue preying on the community, creating needless new victims,” wrote Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies at the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington-based think tank. More than 200 cities and local jurisdictions across the country have such policies, according to CIS.
Progressives, however, contend that such hard-line policies against undocumented immigrants only force them underground, thwarting necessary cooperation with law enforcement and directing time and resources away from fighting crime.
“The main mission of local police should be to ensure public safety,” says Ms. Keaney at the National Immigration Law Center. “So if they’re in the business of immigration enforcement and handing people over to ICE, that really endangers that mission because immigrant communities will then fear that interactions with the police could lead to their own deportation.”