Can Congress Force an End to ‘Sanctuary City’ Policies?

Despite a number of legislative attempts by the congressional GOP to address the blatant disregard of federal law by San Francisco and numerous other sanctuary jurisdictions, no measure has yet been able to effectively curb the problem. But that is about to change. John Culberson, a Republican representative from Texas, has effectively used his post as chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, and Science to coerce the Department of Justice into enforcing a pre-existing federal law against harboring illegal aliens in sanctuary cities.
As chair of the subcommittee, Culberson serves as chief financial officer of the departments under his jurisdiction and thus has the authority to cut off parts of their funding, block certain types of spending, and put intense financial pressure on executive agencies behind the scenes. After assuming his role in January of 2015, he realized that this authority enabled him to insist that departments take certain actions or risk losing their desired funding. Curbing the ill effects of sanctuary cities is one central area in which Culberson chose to leverage the power of the purse to get results, and he is the first appropriations subcommittee chairman to have such success with this method.
Luckily for Culberson, there was already a law on the books for him to work with. In 1996, Congress passed the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, including section 8 U.S.C. 1373, which provided that no state or local entity can in any way restrict its law-enforcement officials from communicating with federal immigration authorities regarding an individual’s citizenship or immigration status.

Though the federal government cannot legally compel states to comply with federal law, it is permitted to use financial rewards or incentives to encourage states to comply. This precedent was established in the 1992 Supreme Court case New York v. United States and has been upheld and strengthened since, and thus the Justice Department’s guidance in this instance clearly falls under constitutional precedent.

Furthermore, Culberson says any jurisdictions that refuse to comply might be denied other annual federal discretionary grants if additional departments require jurisdictions to comply with all federal law in order to be eligible for funding. It is even possible that the cities in question could be required to refund the Justice Department the money that they received in past years while defying federal law. For Chicago that would mean paying the federal government at least $66 million, and for New York City over $200 million at minimum. If California persists in its sanctuary policy, it could owe the federal government over a billion dollars.

Classic. So many examples of people who claim to support States Rights when they LIKE the results, but want to completely trash the concept, if they don't.

You didn't attribute your cut and paste to whoever actually wrote it, so I can't check to see if you copied correctly. I see that the writer did recognize SOME of the actual facts, but ignored others.

He/she recognized that the Federal Government CAN'T Constitutionally compel the states in the way the writer wants them to, but entirely ignores the fact that the LABEL he/she insists on using (i.e. sanctuary cities) is a political propaganda label, and not an actual legal name. And are falsely pretending that the cities or states which choose not to enforce unconstitutional Federal directives, are actively "harboring illegal aliens."

In the real world, what those states are doing, is standing up FOR the Constitution, and telling the Feds that if they want to take action about Federal concerns, that they will have to use existing Federal resources and functions to do so. And, that they can't demand that the States begin conducting unconstitutional and illegal profiling, illegal searches, and other acts of legal oppression, just to save the Federal authorities money.

Umm,it's "Sanctuary Cities", heavy on the "City".

Again, that is a MSM slang term, a crafted political propaganda term. Not a factual one.

http://redalertpolitics.com/2016/12/02/california-chooses-illegal-immigrants-american-students-sanctuary-campuses-lower-tuition/

Thank you for the additional proof that this is MSM, political terminology, and not factual legal terminology.

Basing solutions to a problem on a purposely twisted imaginary version of it, guarantees that the "solution" will be a very very bad idea.

Texas legislators will soon end funding to it's Sanctuary Cities and Sanctuary Campuses.

I'm not one o' them thar sophisticated, educated liberals.

But, even I know the difference, between a state and a city.





....
Though I don't, and won't, take as much of a hardcore
stance on immigration, as some of my peers.
I do believe laws should be enforced.

Quote

I do believe laws should be enforced

Quote

Which is what most Americans want, our own pre existing laws enforced and not ignored.

The thing is, this is an issue which has been blown up, due to people confusing several separate issues, and pretending they are all one.

There is the issue of illegals. That's SEPARATE from the issue of having the Federal government direct STATE AGENCIES to perform Federal functions.

In an effort to bring additional pressure against the states and cities which are refusing to perform Federal duties, this was turned into a liberal-versus-conservative scrap, and then blown out of proportion all together.

Frankly, I'm hoping that Trump manages to accomplish ONE of his earlier campaign promises, and he gets Congress to expand the INS, give it proper funding and powers, so that it CAN go after the illegals as it is supposed to be doing. Then it wont be necessary to force cities and states to ignore the Constitution.

“It isn't so much that liberals are ignorant. It's just that they know so many things that aren't so.”

― Ronald Reagan