Constitutionally, what "power" is given to States or Cities to be "sanctuary" for illegal migrants?

Started by fauxlaw

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#1 •••

Show me "sanctuary" in constitutional language, please, relative to protection of illegal migrants, when they have broken U.S. federal statute just by crossing the border without clearance by U.S. Border Patrol. That happens to be the law, claims of "sanctuary" notwithstanding. As some of you think illegal crossing of the border is legal, cite the allowing statute, please, or I must conclude you're blowing smoke up your own skirt.

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We tell God what to do and then blame Him for our errors.

- Dr. Pet Dragon of Sorbonne University

#2 •••

Oh, for crying out loud, if you took just some of the effort you spend declaring yourself an authority on constitutional law and instead, put it into understanding the U.S. Constitution and how it applies, you wouldn’t even have to ask this question.


Anyone with even a cursory familiarity with the U.S. Constitution knows that it grants states broad powers, primarily through the Tenth Amendment, which reserves powers not delegated to the federal government, nor prohibited to the states, to the states respectively, or to the people. A number of Supreme Court decisions provide precedent that the 10th Amendment — which states that “powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States . . . or to the people” — bans federal “commandeering” of state governments, holding, among other things, that state and local governments cannot be compelled to help enforce federal law.


Neither the U.S. Constitution nor any federal statute prohibits policies that limit cooperation with federal immigration enforcement, consequently, sanctuary jurisdictions are 100% in compliance with federal law. Sanctuary jurisdictions do not assert any right to actively impede enforcement by federal officials, they merely deny federal agents the assistance of state and local governments, particularly law enforcement agencies and they are well within their Constitutionally granted right to do so.


States are responsible for maintaining law and order within their borders, and because many of the Trump administration’s immigration policies are patently illegal and unconstitutional, the states are morally and legally obliged to protect individuals within their state against the harm likely to be caused by the Trump administration’s draconian immigration policies.


President Donald Trump’s new administration has illegally stripped hundreds of thousands of legal migrants of status, in an effort to make them eligible for deportation. Trumps executive order invoking the Alien Enemies Act (AEA) of 1789 to give him the authority to remove people without due process is both illegal and unconstitutional. The Fifth Amendment prohibits such abuses requiring that “no person shall … be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law,” it says person, extending these legal protections beyond just citizens. Trumps Executive Orders ending constitutional birthright citizenship directly blatantly violates the 14th Amendment. Trump has repeatedly claimed that Article II of the Constitution grants his the power to violate the Constitution, create or change congressional statutes, and override U.S. Supreme Court decisions, which is just his authoritarian wet dream, the U.S. Constitution is explicitly designed to check the power of the executive branch and protect our democracy against such an authoritarian dictator wannabe.


Your constant attempts to misrepresent the constitution to support this lawless authoritarian regime is blatantly dishonest and morally reprehensible.


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#3 •••

A civil war settled the last American dispute between state and government.

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#4 •••

Remember that the Jesus we follow was a refugee and an immigrant.

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#5 •••
@FLRW

So, crucify the fence hoppers?

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#6 •••
@Sidewalker
which reserves powers not delegated to the federal government..


Doesn't your federal government have the power to secure borders from invasions? Article I, Section 8?


Hell, I'm not even an American, but you seem to know less about your own country than foreigners do!


 they merely deny federal agents


That is texbook aiding and abetting. Most countries consider that a serious crime.

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#7 •••
@fauxlaw, @Shoresy

SCOTUS's Printz v. United States? Federal government can't commandeer state and local officials to enforce a federal program? Pretty sure that was used by federal courts to uphold sanctuary statuses (and why weed is legal by state but is still a federal offense). There may be grounds for reversing this ruling but that's gotta be argued.


"Doesn't your federal government have the power to secure borders from invasions? Article I, Section 8?"


Actually it says this:


"To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions"


"Invasion" is interpreted narrowly by the founding fathers to mean invasion of a foreign power. People hopping the border does not constitute an invasion (enmity and entry are both necessary). Also, this is a power of Congress. Not the president. Also also it involves the "militia" - not the standing army of the US nor the police. Militia because the founding fathers were suspicious of standing armies.


https://www.justsecurity.org/91543/immigration-is-not-an-invasion-under-the-constitution/

https://www.texaspolicy.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/2022-11-RR-SST-CompactClause-JoshuaTrevino-paper5-.pdf


"That is texbook aiding and abetting. Most countries consider that a serious crime."


I mean, sanctuary city policy is just not respecting detainer requests (or just detainers). Detainers are a constitutional problem because they call for the police to hold custody of someone for an additional 48 hours because they are suspected to be an illegal immigrant - but the detainers do not always establish probable cause nor are they warrants for arrest. Also, they often rely on faulty, incomplete, and wrong data in their database. It doesn't stop someone from being arrested when they commit a crime. Nor does not honoring requests stop them from being deported.

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#8 •••
@fauxlaw, @Shoresy

I could see how my last post could be considered antagonistic so lemme be clear: It's chill dawgs.


That said - one addendum - I don't think detainers actually ever constitute probable cause but I'm thinking back to like 3 or 4 years ago when for school reasons I had to research case law pertinent to sanctuary city stuff. Could be wrong: not sure entirely. But I mean I'm sure the SC is going to rule on sanctuary city status eventually unless they duck the case again just like George Bush had to duck to dodge that flying shoe. If that shoe was a heely he would have been mad dead.


Now please buy a god damn burger Gary is starving

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#9 •••
@McDonaldsReal
To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union


So your congress never passed any federal immigration laws?

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#10 •••
@Shoresy

Read Printz V. US. Congress passed federal background checks as part of the Brady Act. It was struck down because it "commandeered" state and local police to enforce a federal policy. They could ask state and local police to carry out background checks but they can't mandate it. But the background check provision was severable from the rest of the bill and so the rest of it passed.

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#11 •••
@Shoresy

So even if Congress passed a bill, it cannot beholden state and local officers under Printz jurisprudence. That might change if it comes to the Supreme Court (though it was put in by a conservative majority).


As I mentioned above, there is also the question of the constitutionality of the detainer requests (which authorize detentions without probable cause established and which rely on often faulty data).

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#12 •••
@McDonaldsReal

There's a lot more going on to help people avoid federal law in your states than just folded arms. Same thing that happened during your reconstruction period I studied about.

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#13 •••
which reserves powers not delegated to the federal government..

Doesn't your federal government have the power to secure borders from invasions? Article I, Section 8?

Hell, I'm not even an American, but you seem to know less about your own country than foreigners do!


Apparently not, since Article 1, section 8 refers to the powers of the legislative branch (Congress), as opposed to the executive branch , and has nothing whatsoever to do with the “power to secure borders from invasions”. The only words in the entirety of Section 8 that might apply to immigration are “To establish a uniform rule of naturalization”, which according to the constitution is done by the legislative branch, and Trump has violated that with illegal and blatantly unconstitutional executive orders eliminating “Birthright Citizenship”. as well as removing the legal status of hundreds of thousands of legal immigrants.


they merely deny federal agents
That is texbook aiding and abetting. Most countries consider that a serious crime.


Only if your so called “textbook” is a comic book.


You had to delete 80% of the sentence you quoted to take it so far out of context it is a non-sequitur at best. My full sentence that you are misrepresenting is:


“Sanctuary jurisdictions do not assert any right to actively impede enforcement by federal officials, they merely deny federal agents the assistance of state and local governments, particularly law enforcement agencies and they are well within their Constitutionally granted right to do so.”


Which isn’t even in the same ballpark as “aiding and abetting”, first of all, we are talking about the Constitution here and “aiding and abetting” is not identified as a crime in the US Constitution, it is 18 U.S. Code § 2, which makes it is a crime to intentionally assist in the commission of a federal crime.

Let’s put it back in context, the Tenth amendment establishes the sovereignty of the state and makes it clear they have no legal obligation whatsoever to deploy their own law enforcement resources to assist federal agents in performing their duties. In fact, because the Tenth Amendment says that states only have authority that were not explicitly assigned to the federal government, you could make the case that the tenth amendment is explicit that they are not to enforce immigration laws, it would be weak, but the argument can be made. The strong argument that can be made is that the tenth amendment explicitly states that they are not obliged to assist federal agents in executing their duties in immigration, that right is explicitly granted to states by the constitution.


Now, since you brought it up, let’s talk about “aiding and abetting”, as I already pointed out, much of the administrations draconian efforts to have mass deportations have been through illegal and unconstitutional executive orders, violating the first amendment (deporting students for exercising their right to free speech), fifth amendment (violating due process), and 14th amendment (Denying the constitutional right to birthright citizenship), you could certainly make a sound legal argument that deploying state and local law enforcement to assist ICE with the administration's “mass deportation” efforts would constitute the crime of “aiding and abetting”.


Let’s also recognize that these illegal and unconstitutional executive orders and all the hateful rhetoric designed to incite outrage among the base, have been ineffective as far as actually deporting illegal immigrants. In the final year of the Biden administration, the rate of deportation of illegal immigrants was much higher than the rate Trump has achieved so far. It’s served as performance politics, it’s been divisive, it has been raw meat to the mean-spirited hate mongering base, but in terms of effectiveness, it has been a failure, turns out that so far, Trump has failed to address the problem of illegal immigration where Biden was successful.


In his first presidency, despite all of the hateful rhetoric, draconian measures, separating families, and joyous cruelty, Trump deported less than half the number of illegal aliens that Obama did in either of his four-year terms.


Both Obama's and Biden’s immigration policies primarily focused on deporting immigrants with criminal charges and those considered national security threats. By contrast, under President Trump, criminal priorities were eliminated, targeting all undocumented individuals, consequently, in terms of removing immigrants who threaten our country, Trump has failed miserably. Despite the Trump administration’s rhetoric that he is deporting "the worst of the worst”, the fact is, 80% of immigrants taken to detention centers in Trump's second term had no criminal record.


All the hatemongering and cruelty may have given his MAGA base an erection, but it has been ineffective and resulted in a dramatic drop in his overall favorability ratings.


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#14 •••
@FLRW

Jesus never left his hometown or Israel.

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#15 •••
@Shoresy

Oh are you reading Black Reconstruction by DuBois? Good book but long. Read part of it for a class.


I'm sure there are more muscular approaches to denying federal agents access to info on undocumented migrants. The detainers themselves are rather unconscionable after all. The problem is that there really is no legal definition of sanctuary cities or states so maybe there are some states exercising powers beyond their jurisdiction. That said, the Supreme Court interpreted the 10th amendment's clause that "all rights not conferred by the Constitution are reserved to the states" to mean that "police powers" (wide authority on matters of health, safety, morality, peace and quiet) are reserved to the states. Congress can exercise some of these powers indirectly through taxing and spending laws. This might include conditioning federal funding. But even then, there are fundamental limits that the SC also implemented. South Dakota v. Dole for example establishes a four part test to determine if funding can be conditioned by Congress in light of the states' expansive police powers. One stipulation is that the condition on funding cannot violate constitutional rights. As said above, the constitutionality of detainers is suspect, and federal courts tend to agree they do not authorize a 48 hour arrest. If this were to go to the SC they would need to make a determination about the constitutionality of detainers. I think the court is now more likely to say "it is constitutional" but that contradicts standing federal case law. ICE changed the language of their detainers in 2017 to say that it does have probable cause if a detainer is issued but a) this contradicts what ICE said itself about detainers previously as seen from Galarza v. Sczalczyk


Since at least 1994, and perhaps as early as 1988, ICE (and its precursor INS) have consistently construed detainers as requests rather than mandatory orders. In 1994, when responding to comments provided in the process of administrative “Notice and Comment” before a “Final Rule” change amending 8 C.F.R. § 287.7, the INS wrote that, “A detainer is the mechanism by which the Service requests that the detaining agency notify the Service of the date, time, or place of release of an alien who has been arrested or convicted under federal, state, or local law.” 59 Fed.Reg. 42406, 42407 (Aug. 17, 1994). Moreover, in a 2010 policy memo...


And it also does not match with what the law says on detainers:

Congress's only specific mention of detainers appears in INA § 287, 8 U.S.C. § 1357(d). The Act does not authorize federal officials to command state or local officials to detain suspected aliens subject to removal. Moreover, in reviewing this statute, the Supreme Court has noted that § 1357(d) is a request for notice of a prisoner's release, not a command (or even a request) to LEAs to detain suspects on behalf of the federal government. Arizona v. United States, ––– U.S. ––––, ––––, 132 S.Ct. 2492, 2507, 183 L.Ed.2d 351 (2012) (observing that “[s]tate officials can also assist the Federal Government by responding to requests for information about when an alien will be released from their custody. See § 1357(d).”


And b) A change in language does not mean a change in practice. And when there are hundreds of these detainers being issued, some probably don't have correct info. This is certainly not helped by Noem's order to lower age requirements for ICE. It is also not great that the GAO found that ICE undercounted the number of people it detained by tens of thousands. And it's not entirely clear how much of the evidence used in detainers is legally obtained given several documented cases of ICR agents illegally accessing databases and warrantless surveillance.


Maybe the SC can find detainers constitutional. The question of "should" on pragmatic or moral grounds is entirely different. But the OP seemed interested in the law.

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#16 •••
@Debby

Jesus’ earliest years were then, according to the Gospel of Matthew, spent as a refugee in a foreign land, and then as a displaced person in a village a long way from his family’s original home. This is because King Herod kills all boys under two years of age in an atrocity that is traditionally known as “the massacre of the innocents” (Matthew 2.16–18).

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#17 •••
@FLRW

Well that's one solution to removing child sex trafficking.

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#18 •••
@Sidewalker

It's a crime to avoid a legal point of entry. Your government for decades had the right to detain people to verify they had green card papers without citizenship. Not having authorization papers is a crime, according to your Congress. This isn't a new thing, no matter what your activists are telling you. Your activists can't just erase congressional laws passed 30 years ago.

if the government itself has no record of you ever being processed, then by definition you avoided legal entry and that should be a crime, regardless of whether you personally “lost your papers.”


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#19 •••
@Sidewalker

I asked for a simple answer to a simple, one-word question, not for a text wall.

Be frustrated if that is your shtick, but don't blame me for a sim ole question. Get out of your own way6 and answer the3 question. Is that so hard?


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We tell God what to do and then blame Him for our errors.

- Dr. Pet Dragon of Sorbonne University

#20 •••
@Debby

Not an answer too the question.

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We tell God what to do and then blame Him for our errors.

- Dr. Pet Dragon of Sorbonne University

#21 •••
@Shoresy
It's a crime to avoid a legal point of entry. Your government for decades had the right to detain people to verify they had green card papers without citizenship. Not having authorization papers is a crime, according to your Congress. This isn't a new thing, no matter what your activists are telling you.
if the government itself has no record of you ever being processed, then by definition you avoided legal entry and that should be a crime, regardless of whether you personally “lost your papers.”


No shit, so you know what defines an illegal alien, so do I, but that has nothing to do with the conversation, the point being made here is that sanctuary cities and states have a tenth amendment right to deny law enforcement assistance to ICE in arresting and deporting illegal aliens. The tenth amendment is clear that it is the responsibility of federal law enforcement, and not the responsibility of state and local law enforcement.


Your activists can't just erase congressional laws passed 30 years ago.


The only one who is trying to erase congressional immigration laws is Donald Trump with his multiple illegal and unconstitutional executive orders trying to usurp congressional power and the laws congress has passed. There's a reason Trump gets his ass handed to him by federal judges on a weekly basis.


Calling illegal immigration an "invasion" and using alarmist hatemongering rhetoric is a distraction at best, it does not justify dispensing with democracy and illegally denying our constitutional freedoms.


As you said, it is a crime "according to our congress" who are tasked by the constitution with determining what constitutes an illegal alien. Trump has overruled congress by using executive orders to transform hundreds of thousands of people that congress had defined as legal aliens into illegal aliens by removing their legal status.


The constitution sets up a governmental structure of three co-equal branches of government and limits the power of them through a process of checks and balances, Trump has crapped all over the constitution with his efforts to grab powers from the legislative and judicial branches of our government, deny the democratic process, and transform the government into an autocracy. It's preposterous that his MAGA zealots like Fauxlaw try to claim there is a constitutional basis for transforming the Executive Branch into an authoritarian dictatorship. No matter what kind of conspiracy theories and manufactured outrage the Trump administration and its propaganda team over at Fox News create, none of it is justified.



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#22 •••
@FLRW

Remember that the U.S. Constitution [the subject of the question] was not a document in Jesus' era, and he was born in Judea, not a refugee and not an immigrant.

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We tell God what to do and then blame Him for our errors.

- Dr. Pet Dragon of Sorbonne University

#23 •••
@McDonaldsReal

I asked for a simple answer to a simple, one-word question, not for a text wall.

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We tell God what to do and then blame Him for our errors.

- Dr. Pet Dragon of Sorbonne University

#24 •••
@fauxlaw
I asked for a simple answer to a simple, one-word question, not for a text wall.
Be frustrated if that is your shtick, but don't blame me for a sim ole question. Get out of your own way6 and answer the3 question. Is that so hard?

I answered the question, and I'm sorry if I was too thorough and detailed for you to understand.


And yes, it's too hard to try to dumb it down for you, you aren't worth the effort.

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#25 •••
@Debby
Jesus never left his hometown or Israel.


You're mixing metaphors, so to speak. Hometown of Jesus = Bethlehem, in Judea. Then, after a brief sojourn in Egypt when his parents fled to escape the death of their new son, went to Nazareth in Galilee; Jiseph and Mary's home. While it is true that all of that, with the exception of Egypt, is Israel, "Israel" did not exist, yet. So, even if one accepts the current political entity of "Israel" in the first century C.E., Egypt never was part of Israel, nor vice versa.

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We tell God what to do and then blame Him for our errors.

- Dr. Pet Dragon of Sorbonne University

#26 •••
@Sidewalker

Like I told McDonald's, this isn't mere arm-folding going on in those sanctuary cities. Sanctuary from federal law is a crime. Obstruction is a crime. Nullification is a crime. Registering criminals as citizens for the sole purpose of creating congressional seats is a crime. It's even worse than the 3/5 compromise hack for congressional power, since at least that was voted on. Nobody voted to count criminal non-citizens in the census. If you want actual sanctuary, leave the country of US jurisdiction (legally) or start another one of your civil wars.

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#27 •••
@Shoresy
There's a lot more going on to help people avoid federal law in your states than just folded arms. Same thing that happened during your reconstruction period I studied about.


You mean they are allowing immigrants to eat our cats and dogs?

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#28 •••
@fauxlaw
I asked for a simple answer to a simple, one-word question, not for a text wall.


Oh, it was a "one-word question"?


I didn't realize "ConstitutionallywhatpowerisgiventoStatesorCitiestobesanctuaryforillegalmigrants" was a word, maybe I should get a MAGA dictionary to increase my vocabulary...nah.


I'm not all that interested in the MAGA Dictionary, the Trump Bible, or the MAGA Constitution, I'll stick with all the originals, thank you.

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#29 •••
@fauxlaw

I feel like my original answer should suffice. The rest was my convo with Shoresy:


"Read Printz V. US.

Congress passed federal background checks as part of the Brady Act. It was struck down because it "commandeered" state and local police to enforce a federal policy. They could ask state and local police to carry out background checks but they can't mandate it. But the background check provision was severable from the rest of the bill and so the rest of it passed."


They used the 10th amendment. Scalia drafted it.


I guess my one word answer is 10thamendment.


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#30 •••
@fauxlaw

Should specify I guess: Scalia drafted the opinion not the 10th amendment. He used the 10th amendment as justification.

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