SEATTLE NEWS ARCHIVES & FEATURES
Dori: Politicians who tout sanctuary city status ignore crucial data
Nov 14, 2018, 5:57 AM
The Burien City Council voted to follow in Seattle's Sanctuary City footsteps. (Michael Allen Smith, Flickr)
(Michael Allen Smith, Flickr)
Sanctuary city status around here has been disastrous in so many respects, and we’ve talked about this extensively on the show.
Look at the gang problem, especially in Burien, a sanctuary city, and the south end of the county. If you heard my interview with King County Sheriff Mitzi Johanknecht when she announced that the county is starting a new gang unit, I asked her how many of the gang members are illegal immigrants. She does not know. The cops are not allowed to ask about citizenship when making arrests.
To which I ask, how can you solve a problem when you don’t know what the problem is? If the powers of politics and political correctness are stronger than truth, reason, and data, then how can you expect to solve the problem? Every cop around here knows that illegal immigrants play a huge role in our drug and gang problems.
But, the political leaders in this region have this plausible deniability — they can tell us all about how wonderful sanctuary city status is because they don’t have any evidence to refute or counterbalance that statement.
However, when an illegal immigrant goes on to commit a horrible crime, that usually comes out. This story is not local, but it illustrates the problem with sanctuary policy that is embraced statewide. In the news now, a 23-year-old illegal immigrant in New Jersey, Luiz Rodrigo Perez, was put in jail on a domestic violence charge and released. ICE put a detainer on him, but because he was in a sanctuary city, the request was not honored, and ICE was not notified when he was released. Instead of being deported, he was released back into society because political correctness is more important. He has now allegedly murdered three people.
But this will all fall on deaf ears with Jay Inslee, Dow Constantine, Jenny Durkan, every other mayor and county exec around here. They continue to tout the benefits of something, but they insist on not collecting any data that would refute the benefits that they cite. When it comes to politics around here, all of our politicians exhibit that ignorance is our lack of bliss.
RELATED: Burien mayor talks sanctuary city status after fatal shooting
