Razor-wire fences, and sanctuary cities are both terrible policies, that show the total callousness of the American political system.
The two are not at all equivalent.
Erecting barriers like razor wire are meant to dehumanizing the people who try to get across. We are literally treating them like cattle. Especially when we decide to get rid of the problem by shipping them somewhere else.
There are a bunch of different type of Santctuary City policies, but they all boil down to local law enforcement and municipal employees deliberately not asking about the immigration status of people when applying for services or seeking police protection. Which kind of makes sense, if your goal is to uphold human dignity. If someone who is living here gets their stuff stolen, should they feel afraid to go to the cops because they might be deported? What about those folks who came here as infants and had no clue they weren’t citizens? Do they need to present their papers before interacting with the local government?
We have different layers of government in this country for a reason. It is perfectly acceptable for a locality to say “It’s not our job to police immigration status, the Federal Government has enough resources to do that and we won’t do their job for them”.
One policy affirms basic humanity, while the other removes it from a class of people based on where they were born.
The two are not at all equivalent.
Erecting barriers like razor wire are meant to dehumanizing the people who try to get across. We are literally treating them like cattle. Especially when we decide to get rid of the problem by shipping them somewhere else.
There are a bunch of different type of Santctuary City policies, but they all boil down to local law enforcement and municipal employees deliberately not asking about the immigration status of people when applying for services or seeking police protection. Which kind of makes sense, if your goal is to uphold human dignity. If someone who is living here gets their stuff stolen, should they feel afraid to go to the cops because they might be deported? What about those folks who came here as infants and had no clue they weren’t citizens? Do they need to present their papers before interacting with the local government?
We have different layers of government in this country for a reason. It is perfectly acceptable for a locality to say “It’s not our job to police immigration status, the Federal Government has enough resources to do that and we won’t do their job for them”.
One policy affirms basic humanity, while the other removes it from a class of people based on where they were born.