Following 16 hours of debate, the Texas House approved a strict ban on ‘sanctuary’ cities in their state, even opening up the possibility that sheriffs and police chiefs be jailed and removed from power if they don’t comply.
The bill would allow state funds to be withheld from local governments should they fail to cooperate and enforce immigration law.
The legislation is similar to that recently struck down on a federal scale by an Obama-appointed judge.
SANCTUARY SHOWDOWN: Texas House approves bill to ban sanctuary cities from the state pic.twitter.com/tmYHvN6e3u
— FOX & friends (@foxandfriends) April 27, 2017
Via the New York Times:
The Republican-controlled Texas House approved early Thursday a strict ban on “sanctuary cities” in the country’s second-largest state, seeking to empower law enforcement to enforce federal immigration law against anyone they detain and threatening to jail police chiefs and sheriffs who refuse to do so.
The vote came just before 3 a.m. and followed 15-plus hours of heated, sometimes tearful debate, much of it from outnumbered Democrats.
The bill would allow Texas to withhold funding from county and local governments for acting as sanctuary cities — even as the Trump administration’s efforts to do so nationally have hit roadblocks. Other Republican-led states have pushed for similar polices, but Texas would be the first in which police chiefs and other officials could face criminal charges and be removed from office for not helping enforce immigration law.
Can you imagine if a simple concept like upholding the law and jailing accomplices to crime were enacted throughout the country?
Such a sanctuary city ban would have benefitted Jamiel Shaw, Jr., gunned down and killed by an illegal immigrant who had been released from a county jail despite an ICE order to hold him following several gun charges.
And it could have helped Kate Steinle, a 32-year-old woman shot and killed by Francisco Sanchez, an illegal immigrant who had been deported five times but found a safe haven in the sanctuary city of San Francisco.
“Sanctuary jurisdictions across the United States willfully violate Federal law in an attempt to shield aliens from removal from the United States,” President Trump declared in his executive order. “These jurisdictions have caused immeasurable harm to the American people and to the very fabric of our Republic.”
While activist judges continue to do ‘immeasurable harm’ to the American people, Texans can at least rest assured that their lawmakers are trying to stop it.
Like and share this post if you support banning ‘sanctuary’ cities and jailing law officials who protect illegal immigrants!
