Updated: Aug 03, 2017
A recent piece of ESTA and USA immigration news relates to sanctuary cities. On July 26th, it was announced that sanctuary cities would need to meet tougher conditions in order to receive their grant money. There have been widespread protests stemming from this new development in the USA immigration system. Protesters argue that it will make the already harsh USA immigration rules surrounding undocumented migrants much harsher, leaving the lives and livelihoods of large numbers of people without an ESTA document or a USA visa at risk.
In their main substance, these changes will affect the way in which grant money is awarded to sanctuary cities in the USA. A sanctuary city is a city that limits the amount of cooperation that it engages in with law enforcement officials with respect to undocumented migrants. New York and Florida are two examples of sanctuary cities in the US. The argument in favour of sanctuary cities is that fear of deportation impedes the welfare of undocumented migrants in the city as they are less likely to access education and healthcare or report crimes against them. Lifting this fear means that everyone in the city can enjoy a better quality of life. Prior to July 2017, all that the local governments of sanctuary cities needed to do in order to access grant money from the US government was to demonstrate that, once a person has been detained, they were not preventing US federal agents and local law enforcement officials from communicating with each other about that person's immigration status. The Trump Administration has now made the requirements much stricter. In order to qualify for grant money, local governments of sanctuary cities must now provide federal authorities with access to their jails and to provide the federal authorities with notice in advance of the release from jail of someone who is in the USA illegally. This notice must take place no less than 48 hours in advance of that person's release.
The grant money in question is supplied by the government to law enforcement authorities in all states (though all states must demonstrate that they meet certain guidelines laid down by the government). In general, the money is used to pay for equipment relating to law enforcement, with bullet proof vests and body cameras being a common purchase nationwide.
The changes to grant applications by sanctuary cities will come into force in September 2017. It is to be expected that, as with many of the other unpopular decisions of the Trump Administration, there will be legal challenges to the changes in an attempt to overturn them. The office of Eric Garcetti, who is the mayor of LA, for instance, very quickly released a statement to the effect that Los Angeles would be fighting the changes all the way because LA is proud of its status as a sanctuary city.
The politician and lawyer Jeff Sessions, who was appointed by the Trump Administration as the Administration's top law enforcer (the Attorney General), has long been considered to be a controversial choice for any top position. Sessions' work has attracted a lot of criticism, and some commentators are saying that the new changes to the USA visa enforcement system may well spell the last straw for him. Sessions has, throughout his career, been heavily criticised for his harsh approach to suspects and offenders. This has been seen in his voting record in favour of torturing suspects and his active engagement in pushing a bill that would punish a second drug trafficking conviction in Alabama with a mandatory minimum death sentence. Though Sessions' anti-immigrant and pro brutality approach aligns him very well with the Trump Administration as a whole, he has (it seems) recently fallen out of favour with the Administration as the president has been tweeting insults about Sessions in the last couple of weeks of July. The changes to the financial rules applying to sanctuary cities may well be the last item of USA visa news to be released under the aegis of Sessions. Either way, it has mired him, and the Trump Administration as a whole, in further controversy.
Future news items are likely to relate to the impact of these changes to the rules relating to sanctuary cities. In addition, protests against the changes and legal challenges to them are likely to make the news in the coming weeks.
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