Letter to Editor / Sanctuary City

On March 9, the KW American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) held a public meeting to discuss immigration and SC status.  Some of the information from visiting and local experts was shocking – local legal aliens being detained and deported by ICE (Immigration Customs Enforcement), and raids in the dark that violate the Constitution.  In both the legal and moral sense, rapidly growing ICE seems to be a fire out of control and it often functions like rogue police driven by xenophobia, Islamophobia and fear mongering.  The resurgence of private for-profit prisons is another accelerant.  The current situation produces mass anxiety, economic disruption and families ripped asunder, apparently, all to fulfill the President’s campaign promise.

Everyone agrees that KW should continue to cooperate with ICE and federal authorities on serious crimes, but our community doesn’t want to violate our American values and precious Constitutional liberties to support totalitarianism.  For most Key Westers, being a sanctuary city means protecting defenseless friends, neighbors, co-workers or guests who may be undocumented workers but are otherwise law abiding.  We, like Washington, D.C., San Francisco and some 20 other cities, don’t want local law enforcement to reenact Sheriff Arpaio’s profiling and arrest of innocent people without probable cause, or demand proof of citizenship from someone whose tail light is out.  As Police Chief Lee says, it’s neither their function nor mission.

The concern is, if we do what’s right for a community that believes in One Human Family, can the President punish KW in some significant way.  The legal experts cite recent judicial rulings in saying that, in part because we don’t have prisons in KW, the answer is “probably not”.

As a community, we must take a stand in favor of liberty and humane democratic values because, as someone said, history is forever.

Roger C. Kostmayer