Some Views on Sanctuary City

1. That the whole basis of the taxation without representation of immigrants is connected to other aberrant tax issues in Texas. One thing could be to also discuss how Social Security — which immigrants are supposed to pay into but not necessarily get back in the same way others do — is impacted by the lack of taxable wage base that pays into Social Security. This does bring up jobs and economics related to jobs, but it also opens up for a discussion on all kinds of other aberrant taxes that literally use people for purposes beyond what are discussed publicly. I have no problem going there with those discussions, but maybe not everyone is going to be receptive to that level of discussion at first, or able to talk about themselves, especially if there is this sort of scandalousness and also personal jeopardy due to other proceedings.

2. That the Sheriff’s standing up was not just about Sanctuary City for immigrants, but about protecting the dignity of people they are elected to support. It is worth noting that in the formation of Texas, one of the first Supreme Court Justices spoke about how “foreigners” who came to Texas and fought with people from Texas were just as much a part of the promise of Texas as those born in Texas. I got the quote in my bag.* Additionally, if the state is going to pull out a 15 to 20 percent property tax increase with a month’s notice, then the question is what else is the state setting people up for? Penalizing Sheriff’s for standing behind people’s rights to self-preservation and what they have earned and accomplished through work and attempts to stay out of criminal activity is part of the leadership that is needed in the State and this is totally connected to assisting home and land owners with protecting their personal property from being expropriated by a criminal Executive and Legislative branch.

The above was written on Aug. 6, 2017 after I had filed an uncommon petition with the Texas Supreme Court and BEFORE Hurricane Harvey. At that time there was an effort to discuss the status of Sanctuary Cities laws in Texas from a perspective of lost business revenue. I later expanded this to include what I had hoped to propose as a legal argument in support of other ongoing legal issues involving specifically bonding for first responders. Unfortunately, that legal argument proposal and supporting evidence was stolen.

The role of a Sheriff in supporting and enforcing Sanctuary City laws is important because of what a Sheriff is and does. A Sheriff is elected by the people of the jurisdiction AND is responsible primarily for protecting the PRIVATE PROPERTY of the constituency. When it comes to discussing concerns about offering sanctuary to people who lack legal documentation, then this speaks directly to questions of personal property in the form of identity, including identity documents, and what is considered “personal” insofar as one deserves to be protected. It is about more than who holds the title on your house or apartment. When a political subdivision criminalizes the presence of a person who lacks documentation of citizenship, then this enforces a specific form of relationship between that person and the political subdivision.

There are “documents” involved with that processing. Some of these “documents” are securitizable. And insofar as the are securitizable, then that means that based on the manners in which they are classified, they can be assessed certain valuations in respect to the political subdivision issuing and holding the documents. For example, a “transfer order” from a detention center to a hearing is different than a green card, or even a municipal ID; a municipal ID is different than a state ID card or driver’s license, or a passport. When an undocumented immigrant is detained and then let out of a federal facility on “bond” it is very different in terms of a propertied relationship than when he or she is registered in a federal facility and then turned over to the jurisdiction of a municipality. If nothing else, their movements and resource needs go into different budgets.

So when a Sheriff says that he or she will not enforce an eviction order in the course of a foreclosure proceeding, or if a Sheriff says that he or she is not going to cooperate with turning people in this county over to federal law enforcement, he or she are saying something very important about not only how he or she values his or her personal private property and the personal private property of the people in his or her jurisdiction, but also how the people of the municipality do via their acceptance of the representation of that Sheriff they elected. So when the Governor liens on the Sheriff he liens on the whole county.

That’s a very different form of “sanctuary” both for the people in the county and for the people seeking the sanctuary. It also provides a more honest potential assessment of the situation behind Sanctuary City laws and what they actually represent. I contend that in the current imbroglio concerning whether or not to offer “sanctuary” to those on the U.S.-Mexico border right now, the real important discussions are ones that are necessarily local and NOT federal. Would the Democrats in Congress that are saying they will not relent to Trump’s “threat” regarding sending those on the U.S.-Mexico border to their states have a different sense of whether or not to support immigrants under sanctuary in municipalities under their jurisdiction if they were to show up AT that city without federal intervention?

In another words, if they made it through the border without getting caught by migra would they be offered sanctuary in a manner that is not being represented as some sort of threat because they are first being processed by the federal government with the INTENTION of “transferring” them to the municipalities? I contend THAT is the issue here most at work and needs to be addressed as such. Then we can be more honest about what is actually going on with the separation of “family units” now in actual material terms versus the last several years of “family separation” in the form of database entries for DACA and DAPA.

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*I literally had a “bag” that I carried around with me with quotes from old Texas court decisions.

Crouse for President

- Proofread and changed for pronouns tense on Nov. 16, 2019