It’ll be interesting to see how they ends up
Texas sues San Antonio police under sanctuary cities law
Texas’ attorney general sued the San Antonio police chief Friday for what he said are violations of the state’s immigration law targeting “sanctuary cities†and sought millions of dollars in sanctions.
The lawsuit Ken Paxton filed in state court was a rare enforcement action of Senate Bill 4, passed last year by the Texas Legislature and mostly upheld by a federal appeals court.
SB4 is one of the toughest state laws targeting illegal immigration. It prohibited law enforcement agencies from refusing “detainer†requests from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, doing anything to stop an officer from asking about a suspect’s immigration status, or stopping them from cooperating with immigration authorities. (snip)
Paxton’s lawsuit accused McManus of improperly handling a human smuggling case in December 2017 in which 12 immigrants were found inside a tractor-trailer.
ICE typically prosecutes major cases of human smuggling, which occur frequently in South Texas due to the proximity of the U.S.-Mexico border. But in this case, McManus repeatedly declined the help of an ICE officer, instead having the driver charged with a state crime and releasing the migrants to Catholic Charities. (snip)
Police policy now says that officers “will not refer†migrants to ICE unless the person has a federal deportation warrant, and that the department along with other groups will assist victims and witnesses with getting visas.
Paxton’s lawsuit asks a judge to prohibit San Antonio from enforcing that policy of committing “future violations of SB4.†It also demands civil penalties of at least $25,500 a day for every day after Sept. 1, 2017, when the city policy took effect. That alone would surpass $11.5 million, and the lawsuit also demands other civil penalties.
There should be penalties for jurisdictions that refuse to enforce laws that protect US citizens from people who are unlawfully present in the country. Who are essentially providing aid and comfort to people who have already joined the criminal justice system through committing crimes. Those crimes so often involved causing problems for US citizens.
