NC move to ban ‘sanctuary cities’ a nod to stereotypes, not evidence

The state Senate has voted to ban counties and municipalities from claiming recognition as a “sanctuary city,” a designation that allows local governments to limit enforcement of federal immigration laws, such as police officers asking about a suspect’s immigration status.

There are other provisions related to immigration also being considered, including a measure that would disqualify consular documents – those papers issued by a foreign embassy – as sources of valid identification. A state senator was quoted as saying that sanctuary cities would create havens for criminals and that harsh penalties should be considered for those municipal and county governments that seek this designation.

On the same day that the N.C. Senate voted to approve this ban, Pope Francis addressed a joint session of Congress and touched on many of the contemporary social and political challenges facing our nation. The speech called out the hot-button topic of immigration, and Francis reflected on his personal experience as the son of immigrants and recognized that many Americans are also descended from immigrants.

I am one of those many Americans. My grandfather arrived in this country on a ship 100 years ago – a teenager alone and without any personal or family resources for embarking on a new life in a strange land. He settled in Brooklyn and became a small-business owner, raising two sons who would serve in the U.S. Navy, one in the South Pacific during World War II.

For the past few years, I have provided medical care through an outreach program to the migrant farmworkers living in camps surrounding the Benson area and am always humbled by their industriousness, graciousness and gratitude. My experience is at odds with the some of the assumptions informing the N.C. Senate action, and it prompted me to get a better understanding of some of the issues surrounding immigration status and crime.

I was surprised to learn, from a report released this summer by the nonpartisan American Immigration Council, that innumerable studies over the last century have confirmed two simple facts: Immigrants are less likely to commit serious crimes or to be incarcerated than the native born, and high rates of immigration are associated with lower rates of property crime and violent crime.

The data show that, between 1990 and 2013, the foreign-born proportion of the U.S. population grew from 7.9 percent to 13.1 percent and the number of unauthorized immigrants tripled, from approximately 3.5 million to 11.3 million. Yet during the same period, data from the FBI show that the violent crime rate decreased by 48 percent and the property crime rate declined by 41 percent. In addition, multiple studies have found that immigrants are less likely to engage in violent or nonviolent antisocial behaviors and less likely to be repeat offenders as high-risk adolescents, when compared with the native-born.

Troubled by motivations

These data have left me troubled about the motivations and actions of the N.C. Senate. Indeed, the AIC report highlights that federal immigration laws and policies have redefined the notion of criminal as it applies to immigrants, while enforcement programs have been ramped up to discover anyone who might be deportable. For example, new classes of felonies have been enacted that apply only to immigrants, creating the stigma of criminality for this population.

It appears that fear and stereotype rather than evidence, prudence and justice are ruling the day in both the federal government and now in North Carolina, and this led me back to the pope’s address to Congress:

You are called to defend and preserve the dignity of your fellow citizens in the tireless and demanding pursuit of the common good, for this is the chief aim of all politics. A political society endures when it seeks, as a vocation, to satisfy common needs by stimulating the growth of all its members, especially those in situations of greater vulnerability or risk. Legislative activity is always based on care for the people.

For me, the Holy Father’s words were both a civic and moral call that invites all of us to move from a mindset of fear, hostility and division to one of openness, concern and solidarity. This is a civic call about our collective responsibilities, recognizing that in building a common good, we must constantly be mindful of the least among us. And this is a moral call about our individual responsibilities, one that stirs a response when the stranger in our midst appeals to us.

This story was originally published September 29, 2015 at 4:55 PM with the headline "NC move to ban ‘sanctuary cities’ a nod to stereotypes, not evidence."