The grisly murder of Laken Riley, a role model student in Athens, is an abrupt wake-up call for all Georgians and Americans. Athens is a sanctuary city, and Laken was killed by a vicious criminal suspect from Venezuela who had illegally entered the United States and took advantage of “sanctuary city” policies in two jurisdictions. Therefore, Laken’s murder vividly demonstrates the clear and present danger sanctuary cities and counties pose to immigrants and regular U.S. citizens alike.
Moreover, it makes it clear that sanctuary city policies pose a continuing threat to public safety in all jurisdictions where they exist, including the one that contains the University of Georgia.
When a city or county wants to become a sanctuary jurisdiction, they start by prohibiting their police or sheriff’s deputies from cooperating with federal immigration authorities who are working to enforce valid immigration law. In essence, sanctuary cities and county leaders restrain (handcuff) their law enforcement officers to prevent them from reporting illegal immigrants they arrest to U.S. immigration authorities. By prohibiting local law enforcement from cooperating with immigration authorities, sanctuary jurisdictions blatantly pander to illegal immigrants– some of whom are unvetted violent killers– to the detriment of the unsuspecting American public.
While left-leaning politicians tend to create sanctuary cities and counties mainly to win political support, the reason they usually give is that they want to protect illegal immigrants who may become victims of local crime. The politicians claim they don’t want immigrant victims to be afraid to report crimes to the police. Thus, their faulty reasoning goes, if the police can’t cooperate with immigration authorities, immigrant victims will be safe. What they fail to mention is that sanctuary policies actually protect hardened dangerous criminals from federal deportation proceedings.
Notwithstanding their failure to appear for scheduled immigration hearings, most illegal immigrants do not commit new crimes once they arrive in the U.S. Nonetheless, while staying under the radar, they unwittingly provide cover for human traffickers, drug traffickers, gang members and career sex offenders. Meanwhile, those protected criminal offenders, do what criminals do; they prey not only on the immigrant communities that harbor them, but also on the Americans like Laken Riley. When they get arrested by local law enforcement, they wind up being protected by sanctuary city and county policies.
The obvious question becomes: why in the world, would we want to block the deportation process of violent foreign criminals?
Large sanctuary cities like New York, Denver and Chicago that are now re-thinking their sanctuary policies are doing so not because of the extraordinary amount of violent crime committed by criminal immigrants. Instead, the cities are questioning their own sanctuary policies because of the logistics and expense of accommodating the masses of immigrants who flock to their jurisdictions.
Maintaining peace and public safety is the most fundamentally important responsibility of any level of government. Thus, the cities and counties that block local law enforcement from cooperating with their federal law enforcement partners to weed out murderers, terrorists, drug traffickers and sex offenders are at best remiss in their most basic protection responsibilities, and at worst; intentionally undermining the American criminal justice system.
Communities truly sensitive to the safety of their citizens and even immigrant groups in their jurisdiction can establish reasonable local programs. For example, programs like “if you are a victim or a witness to a crime, local police will not inquire about your immigration status” can encourage immigrant victims to report crime. Those kinds of policies or programs can be advertised in the language of local immigrant groups, and they do not protect crime suspects. That way, frightened victims are given a pathway to local police protection without creating sanctuary policies that undermine our criminal justice system.
Georgians concerned about public safety and who disagree with harboring dangerous criminal immigrants should first learn whether the jurisdiction they live in is a sanctuary. If it is, they should get engaged and let the elected officials who support sanctuary policies know that they will be facing resistance in their next election. In addition, responsible citizens should vocally support state legislative efforts to prohibit sanctuary city and county policies. We do not need more victims like Laken Riley.
The author, a retired law enforcement veteran, served as the police chief of Savannah and Marietta.
