Louisiana would ban sanctuary cities for immigrants under bill approved by state Senate – NOLA.com

As Republican legislators pursue a number of traditional objectives under Governor, the Louisiana Senate voted to prohibit places, towns, and parishes from implementing immigration-focused” shelter policies.” Jeff Landry.

The Legislature’s lower room approved Senate Bill 208, sponsored by Sen. Blake Miguez, R- New Iberia, on a 26- 11 voting Wednesday evening after a short conversation, sending the legislation to the House. Local governments would be unable to pass laws that may hinder federal immigration enforcement or that would forbid local police from assisting them in those endeavors.

The policy is a result of a traditionalist backlash against local governments that prevent local officials from assisting the government in enforcing immigration laws. It was filed amid a battle between Republican states and Democratic President Joe Biden over national border issues. &nbsp, San Francisco, for example, pubs city workers “from using capital funds or resources” to support federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement brokers.

New Orleans- place legislators say Miguez’s expenses singles out their city. In an effort to encourage migrants to record criminal action and seek support without fear of being deported, the New Orleans Police Department adopted a policy in 2016 that states the company will not prosecute people who are in the United States improperly unless a determine orders it.

” It’s quite clear the invoice is targeted to the city of New Orleans”, said Sen. Royce Duplessis, D- New Orleans. ” The city of New Orleans has been the target of a lot of regulations recently.”

Miguez, who was questioning in a parliamentary hearing this month, claimed the bill is an attempt to bring the state’s neighborhoods into line with the national multiculturalism system.

” America’s edges and immigration system is broken”, Miguez said. By encouraging illegal immigration and prohibiting proper immigration law enforcement,” Sanctuary city policies make the ( problem ) worse.”

A flood of Democratic- led states including Mississippi, Arkansas, Texas and Florida have passed legislation in recent years banning the implementation of those procedures. One of the several GOP-led statehouses hoping to emulate Texas by allowing local authorities to enforce immigration rules, which have historically been the only authority of federal officials, is Louisiana.

Louisiana’s expenses goes deeper than legislation passed by the government’s neighbors because it says that native agencies” shall render best efforts” to help immigration enforcement, said Mary Yanik, a law professor at Tulane University and the director of the school’s Immigrant Rights Clinic. That language is identical to the law that the governor of Florida signed. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, in 2019.

Louisiana’s bill offers no specifics about what constitute those “best efforts”, Yanik said. The law provides exemptions for unauthorized immigrants who are witnesses or victims of crimes, Yanik said, and they are also vague and could cause immigrants to feel pressured into giving testimony.

” Ambiguity does not help local law enforcement in these situations”, Yanik said.

A request for comment on the legislation was not immediately returned by a New Orleans Police Department spokesperson.

The adoption of” sanctuary city” policies in U.S. cities, which started in the 1980s when places of worship opened their doors to refugees from civil wars in Latin America, grew more rapid during Donald Trump’s presidential term from 2017 to 2021. Some immigration advocates object to the phrase, saying it exaggerates the protections that immigrants receive under various community policies.

After the Trump administration started enacting a hardline immigration enforcement strategy, New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu and the city’s policy were then- New Orleans Mayor clashed. In 2017, Trump’s Justice Department sent letters to nine” sanctuary cities,” including New Orleans, to demand that they demonstrate their compliance with federal immigration laws or run the risk of losing money.

Officials in New Orleans responded that their town’s inclusion on the list was the result of a policy that was later changed to specifically mandate compliance with the federal law that the DOJ had accused cities of violating.

Miguez was joined at the presenter’s table by Opportunity Solutions Project’s Brian Sikma last week when he presented his new immigration legislation to the Senate Judiciary B Committee. The Foundation for Government Accountability, a Florida-based think tank that has played a significant role in efforts to weaken child labor laws in GOP-controlled states, is its lobbying arm.

Since Landry, a Republican, took office in January, Miguez’s immigration bill is one of a group of similar pieces of legislation that Republicans have fought to pass but have n’t since since. John Bel Edwards, a Democrat who held office from 2016 until early this year.

In 2016, Landry, a conservative firebrand who was then serving as Louisiana’s attorney general, stumped at the Capitol for a similar ban on” sanctuary policies”. That bill died in a Senate committee. Its sponsor, Rep. Valerie Hodges, R- Denham Springs, now a state Senator, tried bringing the legislation back the following year. It&nbsp, died again.

Initial proposals in Miguez’s bill included giving the governor’s office the power to withhold funding from police departments that do n’t follow the law. The bill would instead allow judges to hold in contempt of court organizations that do n’t comply with an amendment that was approved on the Senate floor. &nbsp,