“…any person who… knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that an alien has come to, entered, or remains in the United States in violation of law, conceals, harbors, or shields from detection, or attempts to conceal, harbor, or shield from detection, such alien in any place”
or
" …engages in any conspiracy to commit any of the preceding acts, or aids or abets the commission of any of the preceding acts…"
is guilty of a felony.
Seems pretty clear that the local government officials of “sanctuary cities” are violating this law. Apparently we’re not a country of laws, since willful and blatant violation of laws is completely ignored.
Can you name any city at all where the local government is doing what you describe? All that so-called “sanctuary cities” are doing is not butting their nose into the federal government’s business.
As I read the statute, it seems abundantly clear that the law is intended to punish people like coyotes or shady business owners who hire illegal immigrants in order to pay them shitty wages. Your reading of the law, that local police officers should be imprisoned if they are not actively searching out illegal immigrants and reporting their suspicions, seems to be an awfully broad reading of the statute.
In this Pit thread the OP inveighs against an attempt to charge the boys that laughed at (and filmed) a drowning man and never called for help; the man’s body was later pulled from the water. There is no general law that mandates assistance, but authorities are contemplating charging the onlookers with violation of a Florida statute that mandates anyone who encounters a dead body reporting such body to the district medical examiner.
I would hate to hear your interpretation of the tax code, since constant daily audits by local authorities is clearly the only way to ensure that they are not harboring or abetting tax evaders.
Was an illegal immigrant. Had been deported five times from the United States in the past. Was in federal custody. Was returned to San Francisco on a drug charge.
That charge was dropped and Lopez-Sanchez was released onto the streets of San Francisco without notifying immigration officials.
Would you say that falls under: “knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that an alien has come to, entered, or remains in the United States in violation of law, conceals, harbors, or shields from detection, or attempts to conceal, harbor, or shield from detection, such alien in any place”?
The invocation of that “dead body reporting” law is clearly done because they could not find anything else to charge them with, and they really, really wanted to punish their behavior. Not the “not reporting the dead body” behavior. But the behavior that was not illegal.
In the case of the OP here, the law directly applies to the behavior of the sanctuary cities officials. It would not be punishing them for something else they did. It would be punishing them for the exact behavior described in the law.
By Okrahoma’s standard, they are clearly guilty. I’m more curious as to his thoughts on that matter.
Did immigration officials ask for Lopez-Sanchez to be turned over, and the police lied to the immigration authorities? That would be my common understanding of the words “conceal” or “shield from detection.”
Yes. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement had issued a detainer for Sanchez requesting that he be kept in custody until immigration authorities could pick him up. San Francisco ignore that and released him.
My argument is that ignoring an explicit detainer request from ICE falls squarely under: “knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that an alien has come to, entered, or remains in the United States in violation of law, conceals, harbors, or shields from detection, or attempts to conceal, harbor, or shield from detection, such alien in any place”.
Well, that’s a shame to hear. Are there any other laws which, if not strictly enforced, render the whole of American jurisprudence meaningless, or is it just this one?
Just wondering, because I saw a guy make a rolling stop at a stop sign recently, and it would be a lot of fun to get loaded and drive a stolen car 120mph through a playground.
Agreed. Every mayor and every councilman who votes for their city to be a sanctuary city, and every public official who issues orders to not follow immigration laws should be arrested for violation of those immigration laws.
So I just googled it, and it sounds like ICE’s request was for San Francisco to continue holding him until ICE could decided if they wanted to come get him or not. I think that is slightly different than ICE saying, “We’re on the way to pick him up!”
Is your issue that San Francisco didn’t want to continue holding a person on behalf of a Federal agency? Seems like ICE knew where he was, and wasn’t coming to get him, which makes it hard for me to see that San Francisco was “concealing” him.