The comforting thing about Mayor Marty Walsh’s offer to use Boston City Hall as a sanctuary for illegal immigrants is that no one will take him up on it.
No one goes to New City Hall unless it’s absolutely necessary. A trek across barren City Hall Plaza toward the neo-Brutalist, Stalin-inspired concrete monstrosity already comes with the judge’s words at sentencing ringing in your ears.
Many a person approaching the ominous fortress thinks to himself, With time off for good behavior, I might be able to get out of here soon.
But it’s the thought that counts, and Walsh’s thought is outrageous.
Here’s what the mayor said during a press conference at City Hall on Wednesday after President Donald Trump announced plans to yank federal funding from cities (like Boston) that refuse to cooperate with federal immigration authorities:
“If people want to live here, they’ll live here. They can use my office. They can use any office in this building.’’
Note the disconnection between what Trump did and what Walsh said. The president is asking cities to honor requests from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to detain people who are arrested and are in this country illegally.
Trump hasn’t ordered the feds to raid immigrant communities and round everybody up. What he’s talking about are illegal aliens who get arrested and who are subject to being deported.
Boston’s so-called Trust Act ordinance, approved by the City Council in August 2014, ties the hands of Boston police. They can’t hold for the feds an illegal alien arrested on a criminal charge unless the feds already have a criminal warrant, the person has been convicted of a violent crime, the person has been convicted of a felony within the last 10 years, or the person is on the state’s Sex Offender Registry or the federal government’s Terrorist Watchlist.
So, someone who commits non-felony fraud or theft or another nonviolent crime can rest assured that local cops won’t turn him over for deportation.
Which begs the question: Why do we want criminals who don’t have a right to be here in this country? And why do we want to prevent local police from cooperating with federal authorities who are supposed to kick such people out?
As ridiculous as this Trust Act business is, consider the president’s response. He isn’t calling in U.S. Marshals to force local officials to comply with federal law.
Here’s the operative part in the president’s executive order Wednesday:
“Ensure that jurisdictions that fail to comply with applicable Federal law do not receive Federal funds, except as mandated by law …”
That’s it. You flout federal law? You don’t get federal funding.
Why?
Here’s what the executive order says:
“We cannot faithfully execute the immigration laws of the United States if we exempt classes or categories of removable aliens from potential enforcement.”
How simple is that? We have immigration laws. They aren’t being enforced. We need to enforce them. We need local authorities to cooperate with federal authorities to enforce the law.
And the penalty is simple justice: You break the law, you don’t get rewarded with money.
It’s time for Mayor Walsh and the rest of the leaders in the city of Boston to comply with federal law. Until we embrace the rule of law, we will continue to lurch toward chaos.
We will also continue to delay considering the interesting questions of immigration policy — who, how many, how often, what skills, from where — and instead waste our time talking about absurd accusations and goofy ideas.
