Travis County is home to the city of Austin and is one of the few liberal counties in Texas. From Kemberlee Kaye writing at Legal Insurrection:
Texas Governor Abbott Threatens to Cut Travis County Funding Over Sanctuary City Directive
The immigration battle is heating up in Texas.
Just last Friday, “the newly elected sheriff, who campaigned on the issue, announced Friday that her department would reduce its cooperation with federal immigration authorities when they request an inmate be flagged for possible deportation. Her office said it would still continue to hold people charged with very serious crimes, such as capital murder.”
Monday, calling her directive “dangerous” and “shortsighted”, Governor Greg Abbott sent a letter to Travis County Sheriff Sally Hernandez threatening to cut state funding if she persisted in her refusal to enforce federal immigration laws. Travis county is one of the state’s few liberal vestiges and home of state capitol, Austin.
The arbitrary enforcement led Abbott to remind Hernandez that her actions betrayed her, “oath and the residents of Travis County”. “I, too, have taken an oath to, “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States and of the State of Texas.” And my primary duty as Governor is to ensure the safety and security of Texans,” he wrote.
“You offer two justifications for your actions, but both are frivolous. First, you claim you have no legal power to comply with ICE detainers. That proves too much, of course, because by your own admission, TCSO will honor some ICE detainers — for example, when the alien is charged with or convicted of capital murder. You have the exact same legal authority to honor ICE detainers for capital murder cases as you do for other crimes that you personally deem unworthy of enforcement. Second, you claim that TCSO should focus on “public safety,” while the federal government focuses on immigration enforcement. That ignores, of course, that the individuals subject to ICE detainers pose grave threats to public safety. The whole point of ICE’s detainer program is to ensure that the worst of the worst do not walk free and further jeopardize public safety.
Indeed, the potential impact of this public safety program is staggering. Since 2011, over 200,000 undocumented aliens have been booked into Texas jails. These undocumented aliens were charged with more than 559,000 criminal offenses. According to Texas Department Public Safety, those included 1,132 homicide charges; 66,687 assault charges; 16,304 burglary charges; 66,289 drug charges; 682 kidnapping charges; 39,689 theft charges; 43,723 obstructing police charges; 3,677 robbery charges; 5,903 sexual assault charges; and 8,375 weapons charges. Of the total undocumented aliens arrested in that time frame, over 139,000, or 66 percent, were identified by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security as being in the United States illegally at the time of a previous arrest
Nothing like a good dose of numbers to drive home a point. Another case of narrative versus fact. Rhetoric v/s Dialectic. Much more at the site.
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