No agreed upon meaning of 'sanctuary city'

By Iowa City Press-Citizen

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During last week's City Council discussion of whether Iowa City should become a “sanctuary city,” it became apparent that there really isn't a set definition of what that controversial phrase means.

If becoming a “sanctuary city” simply were to mean that “anyone living in Iowa City, regardless of their immigration status, should be protected if they were to come forward to authorities as the victim of a crime or as a witness to a crime,” then we have no problem with the title. After all, Iowa City police say they already do not ask about a person's immigration status when talking to victims or witnesses.

And at first reading, the language proposed by the Iowa City Human Rights Commission might seem to do just that: “No entity employee or agent of the City of Iowa City shall request information about or otherwise investigate or assist in the investigation of the national citizenship or federal residence or any federally issued immigration status of any person unless such inquiry or investigation is required by the Iowa State Statute federal regulations or court decision.”

But Iowa City Attorney Eleanor Dilkes said that there is no way that the city can make such a claim for law enforcement and still be in compliance with federal laws and regulations - at least when it comes to law enforcement issues.

All counties in Iowa are scheduled to go online with the federal program Secure Communities, Dilkes explained. And when that happens in Johnson County, local police will be required to gather fingerprints of everyone arrested for a crime greater than a simple misdemeanor and send those prints into an Immigration and Customs Enforcement database. That means that local police, in essence, will be required to “assist in the investigation of the national citizenship” of the person being arrested.

And once that information is shared, city police and other city workers will have no control over how immigration officials use the details provided. Critics of Secure Communities, in fact, say the federal program's wide net sweeps up information on many undocumented immigrants who haven't been accused of any serious misdemeanors or felonies. ...

The council understandably has thrown the “sanctuary city” ball back into the Human Rights Commission's court. Commission members will need to draft a statement of exactly what type of “sanctuary” they are requesting. But it is hard to imagine how proponents will come up with a definition of “sanctuary city” capable of clearing all the legal hurdles Dilkes describes.