Elected Officials Should Put an End to Houston's Status as a Sanctuary City

A term has risen in the more recent debates about immigration: “sanctuary cities.” The concept is this: that there are some cities in the United States that will go out of their way to protect immigrants who have entered the country illegally from federal immigration officials.

Sheriff Ed Gonzales, a proven proxy to the Biden Administration in a July 2019 Facebook post, stated he opposed sweeping immigration raids in response to a tweet posted by Trump saying that ICE would be deporting “millions of illegal aliens’ Gonzales stated “I do not support ICE raids that threaten to deport millions of undocumented immigrants, the vast majority of whom do not represent a threat to the U.S. The focus should always be on clear and immediate safety threats.”

In the last several years due to progressive policies pushed through by Harris County and Houston “elected” officials along with the assistance of marxist criminal court judges have undoubtedly proven that these career politicians have no understanding whatsoever in how these policies contributes to the spike in crime, rise in STD rates, and the clear abuse of federal funds being spent on illegal immigrants entering into our country contributing to what I call “modern slave trade” Cartels and human traffickers are making BILLIONS and clearly now hold heavy influence in who is installed in local office by illegal ballot trafficking and injections of millions into campaign funds.

If there is nothing we can do about the border locally, then there should be calls to end Houston’s status of being a “sanctuary city”.

To Make America Safe Again, We Must End Sanctuary Cities and Remove Criminal Aliens

Release Date: February 15, 2018

Non-cooperative jurisdictions that do not honor U.S. Immigration and Customs (ICE) detainer requests to hold criminal aliens who are already in their custody, endanger the public and threaten officer safety by releasing criminal aliens back into the community to re-offend. In addition to causing preventable crimes, this creates another “pull factor” that increases illegal immigration.

We must take criminal aliens off our streets and remove them quickly once they are apprehended. 

• The 2001 Supreme Court decision in Zadvydas v. Davis significantly restricts the ability of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to detain aliens with final orders of removal, including serious felony offenders, if their home countries will not accept their return.

  • In Fiscal Year 2017, more than 2,300 aliens were released because of that court decision, including more than 1,700 criminal aliens.

• In addition to those who enter illegally, visa overstays account for roughly 40 percent of all illegal immigration in the United States.

• Some jurisdictions do not honor ICE detainer requests to hold or provide adequate notice of release of criminal aliens who are already in custody, endangering the public and threatening officer safety by releasing criminal aliens back into our communities to re-offend.

• Instead of allowing ICE officers to take custody of criminal aliens in a secure environment, such as a local jail, jurisdictions that refuse to honor ICE detainers put ICE officers and others at risk by forcing them to go into often perilous environments to arrest dangerous criminal aliens.

• There are nearly one million aliens with final orders of removal, and not enough officers or resources to deport them.

• Of the 53,908 criminal cases filed by federal prosecutors in the 94 U.S. District Courts in fiscal year 2016, 23,573 cases (43.7 percent) were located in just the five border districts (Arizona, Southern District of California, New Mexico, Southern District of Texas, and Western District of Texas).

• Half of all federal criminal cases filed in U.S. District Courts in Fiscal Year 2016 (25,965 of 53,908 cases) were referred by the DHS.

• While noncitizens made up approximately 7.2 percent of the U.S. population in 2016,[1] they accounted for 41.7 percent of all federal offenders sentenced for felonies or Class A misdemeanors in that fiscal year. Even excluding all types of immigration offenses, noncitizens accounted for more than 20 percent of all federal offenders sentenced for felonies or Class A misdemeanors—nearly three times their share of the general population.

• In the five border districts, noncitizens accounted for 73.5 percent of all federal offenders sentenced for felonies or Class A misdemeanors in fiscal year 2016, and 47 percent of all federal non-immigration felonies or Class A misdemeanors.

The American people overwhelmingly favor the removal of criminal aliens.

• According to a recent Harvard-Harris poll,[2] 80 percent of American voters share the common-sense view that cities that arrest illegal aliens for crimes should be required to turn them over to immigration authorities.