In order to justify what is clearly his personal anti-immigrant, white supremacist attitudes and his agenda to act on them, and, perhaps, to also take on a leadership role among the nation’s sheriffs and catching the eye of the president so that he can be more important than he actually is, when he speaks against sanctuary cities, the Sheriff of Bristol County Massachusetts misrepresents what his real job is and lies about the true nature of sanctuary cities so as to frighten the local population into thinking others have the privilege to commit crimes with impunity, and they are not those people.
He tries to keep the population fearful of an invented threat, claiming he is the one standing between a safe community and a post apocalyptic one, so that the people, not seeing crimes, assume he is effective in preventing crimes that would not have happened anyway.
He is the kid standing on the street corner snapping his fingers, telling passers-by that he does this to keep elephants out of the downtown district, the measure of his effectiveness being that in a town on the south coast of a New England state, there are no elephants down town.
Sanctuary cities do not allow free rein for anyone to commit crimes. They merely do not seek people out until they have committed one. They do not frighten immigrant residents by raiding places, scaring the whole immigrant population of any town or city, hoping to find some undocumented people within that community.
If a person commits a crime, they are treated according to standard procedures that could put them under ICE detention, but local police do not go out of their way to profile people in the hopes of finding someone, anyone, to arrest, and they do not spend local money doing the federal government’s work and removing those funds from what is needed to keep a local community safe.
But to create an issue and promote an agenda, it is necessary to have a lot of flash, dash, and fear.
Reality, like the sheriff’s actual job being an administrator not a John Wayne, Western style sheriff, is sometimes rather boring.
And, having the need to inflate his ego and to appear the tough guy he wants, and needs, so desperately for people to see him as, the sheriff will be as happy as a pig in mud if Trump follows through with his latest plan to deploy highly trained tactical border control agents to “sanctuary cities” across the country to boost arrests of undocumented immigrants.
There are no official sanctuary cities in Bristol County, unless one looks up existing state law which actually, already makes Massachusetts a sanctuary state, and while local police chiefs will only follow through on arresting someone who commits a crime beyond just being here, they will not do the work of a federal agency on the county taxpayers’ dollar.
The sheriff at one point had promoted a law which would have had any elected person who supported sanctuary cities face arrest.
Members of the US Customs and Border Protection’s (CBP) Border Patrol Tactical Unit (BORTAC) will deploy to cities including San Francisco, Atlanta, Houston, Boston, New Orleans, Detroit, and Newark, New Jersey,cities with sanctuary policies and have large immigrant communities, as do Fall River and New Bedford, both in Bristol County, and both the excuse the sheriff might employ if he wants to get his own unnecessary tactical unit to go along with his undercover units that have already been spying on the churches in the county.
The Trump administration has been putting pressure on cities and towns that have enacted sanctuary policies in which local law enforcement do not coordinate with federal immigration officers.
ICE acting Director Matthew T Albence explained the move.
“ICE is utilizing CBP to supplement enforcement activity in response to the resource challenges stemming from sanctuary city policies. As we have noted for years, in jurisdictions where we are not allowed to assume custody of aliens from jails, our officers are forced to make at-large arrests of criminal aliens who have been released into communities.”
Members of the tactical unit carry stun grenades along with standard gear, and their training program was patterned after US Special Operation Forces courses, according to the CBP website.
The Department of Justice has filed lawsuits against California, New Jersey and King County, Washington, claiming their sanctuary policies make it difficult for authorities to enforce federal immigration law.
William Barr told the National Sheriff’s Association at its 2020 Winter Legislative and Technology Conference in Washington, D.C., that the Justice Department would immediately move to file lawsuits against localities with sanctuary policies designed to actively obstruct federal immigration enforcement.
“Let us state the reality upfront and as clearly as possible. When we are talking about sanctuary cities, we are talking about policies that are designed to allow criminal aliens to escape. These policies are not about people who came to our country illegally but have otherwise been peaceful and productive members of society. Their express purpose is to shelter aliens whom local law enforcement has already arrested for other crimes. This is neither lawful nor sensible.”
According to Barr, the DOJ supports ICE’s getting around sanctuary policies by implementing subpoenas to pursue cases, and is reviewing district attorneys who seek lesser sentences for aliens convicted for a crime to avoid triggering federal immigration consequences.
The Department of Homeland Security has already punished the state of New York by barring people from there from renewing or obtaining new Global Entry passes, the pre-clearances that allow faster passage through airport immigration and from participating in programs that permit faster travel between the US, Canada and Mexico.
The deployment will run from February through May.
While Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley, whose district includes Boston, said:
“Let us be clear, this move has nothing to do with public safety, but rather serves only to further the Trump Administration’s agenda to intimidate and retaliate against cities that uphold the dignity and humanity of our immigrant neighbors.”
The Bristol County sheriff, on the other hand, is most likely formulating a way to get himself a piece of the action, or his picture taken near a big truck.