Sanctuary Cities, Crime, and Incorporation

One of the chief complaints raised against sanctuary cities is that they can increase crime, while one argument in their favor is that they can increase the incorporation of Latino and immigrant communities. This chapter analyzes both the positive and negative effects of sanctuary polices, finding that these policies have no effect on crime rates when comparable cities are compared to one another and when crime rates pre/post sanctuary are examined. The findings show that sanctuary policies can have positive effects, potentially increasing both Latino voter turnout and police force representation. While sanctuary policies are found to have few downsides and potential positive benefits, antisanctuary legislation like Texas’s SB4 are found to have a negative effect. In high-immigrant areas, antisanctuary legislation is found to depress the number of 911 calls, suggesting that antisanctuary legislation does in fact reduce crime reporting, as opponents claim.

Understanding Public Opinion on Sanctuary Cities

Up until relatively recently, little public polling on sanctuary cities has taken place. That has changed as these policies have become points of conflict between federal and state/local governments. This chapter analyzes public opinion polls in two states with a significant stake in the sanctuary debate, California and Texas, to better understand how partisan and racial learning affect support for sanctuary policies. This chapter shows that both Democrats and Republicans have increasingly “learned” the correct position on sanctuary policies based on their partisan identification, which is the strongest predictor of support or opposition to sanctuary policies. Further, the chapter shows that opposition to sanctuary cities are strongest in areas undergoing rapid Latino growth not in high-crime areas.

Legislative Expression: Sanctuary Policymaking in the U.S. States

While sanctuary policies have traditionally been passed by cities and counties rather than states, this situation has shifted in recent years with both California and Oregon embracing their identity as “sanctuary states,” while in Texas SB4 was signed into law, officially banning sanctuary legislation across the state. This chapter examines the factors that increase the likelihood that state legislators will introduce pro- or antisanctuary legislation. We find that racial threat activated by an increasing minority population, the ideology of the state and its voters, and the structure of state institutions all increase the likelihood of pro/anti-sanctuary legislation being introduced at the state level.

Sanctuary Cities: The Way Forward

This chapter summarizes the preceding five chapters and discusses the implications of our findings for sanctuary policies and immigration policy more broadly.

Media Coverage of Sanctuary Cities, 1980–2017

The intended beneficiaries of sanctuary policies changed from refugees in the 1980s to undocumented immigrants in the 2000s. This chapter charts the shift in the tone and tenor of media coverage during that time. In the 1980s this coverage tended to emphasize how religion and morality influenced both the Sanctuary Movement and the cities that declared themselves “cities of refuge” in solidarity. By the 2000s, and particularly in the Trump era, the media have increasingly covered the partisan divides over the issue and debates over the role of these policies in increasing crime rates. This chapter also discusses the likely role this coverage has had on public opinion on the issue.

The Sanctuary City in Historical Perspective

This chapter examines how the Sanctuary Movement influenced the first city-level sanctuary declarations, as well as how these policies evolved from the 1980s to 2010s. Charting both shifts in the language of the policies themselves, as well as the political events leading to their passage, this chapter paints a picture of how conflicts over immigration enforcement and refugee policy have shaped modern sanctuary policies.

Introduction

On July 1, 2015, Kathryn Steinle was shot and killed by Jose Ines Garcia Zarate, an undocumented immigrant, in San Francisco. Prior to the shooting, Garcia Zarate had been taken into custody on a marijuana possession charge, which was later dismissed, but the city had declined to honor an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detainer request to hold him until ICE could take him into their custody based on the city’s sanctuary policy. Garcia Zarate was later found not guilty of murder in the Steinle shooting, but many blamed his release, despite the request by ICE, as the reason for Steinle’s death. While San Francisco had been a sanctuary city since 1989, policies that minimize city cooperation with ICE had long flown under the radar of the American public until the Steinle shooting....