Welcoming city or sanctuary city

Las Cruces is not a sanctuary city, but rather a “welcoming city”, as deemed by City Council Resolution 18-075, enacted on Dec. 18, 2017. This resolution provided certain protections for our immigrant community, and contains rather robust verbiage to prohibit the Las Cruces Police Department, specifically, from detaining an individual solely based on their nationality.

When queried during at least two council meetings that I remember viewing, LCPD Chief Story specifically stated that they do not assist federal agencies with enforcing immigration laws and are, frankly, never privy to a person’s immigration status in their regular policing endeavors.

The resolution is fairly comprehensive. And yet, the city performed a bit of synonymous gymnastics in naming it a “welcoming city”, rather than a sanctuary city. This has allowed Las Cruces to fly under the radar with the current administration. In fact, a recent sanctuary city list release by the federal government cited Albuquerque as a sanctuary city but Las Cruces was conspicuously missing.

Relatedly, Las Cruces may continue to benefit from Federal funding initiatives when Albuquerque has its rescinded, as was recently the case for Albuquerque’s Rail Trail Project and $11.5 million.

But the city isn’t content leaving well enough alone. At the last council meeting, council members requested for the Welcoming City Resolution to be revised, bringing it forward at the meeting on Oct. 6. What revisions could it possibly need? One council member in particular noted that she was “scared,” prompting the request for the revision.

The timing is notable. Three out of seven voting seats are on the ballot this year, two of which include an entirely new pool of candidates, since the incumbents have declined to seek re-election. So, let’s hedge the bets with lame-duck, known progressive council members before they leave, rather than roll the dice with the new guard after the election.

I will speak to facts. In Trump’s first term, 1.2 million people were deported. In Obama’s first term, 1.57 million people were deported and 1.49 million in his second term. If we assume that the Trump administration holds to its current tempo, we can extrapolate the numbers from his first 250 days in office (400,000 deported) to four years to arrive at 2.3 million anticipated deportations.

But this number is likely high, given all of the self-deportations we’ve already witnessed in that same 250 days (1.6 million). Therefore, the numbers between Trump’s two terms are likely to arrive very comparable to those of Obama during his two terms.

And yet, this country is tearing itself apart over the immigration debate. Even our New Mexico state legislators are getting in on the hateful rhetoric. In a committee meeting this week, Democratic senators likened ICE agents to the KKK and of course we’ve all heard the analogy to Nazis and Hitler. These are law enforcement officers that get up every single day, leave their families, to keep our country safe, only to face increasing danger inflamed by hateful rhetoric from those at the highest levels that many view as leaders in our communities. It’s no wonder violence greets us with every headline.

And yet, the push continues to create sound bites on a national stage. If federal funding is removed from Las Cruces projects, our local leaders will be up in arms, perpetuating the polarizing narrative. That isn’t supportive of the community, immigrant or not. That’s self-aggrandizement at the expense of everyone in Las Cruces.

If our elected leaders seek to add who-knows-what to the “Welcoming City” Resolution, already robust in its own right, they should step out into the light and call it what it is, a sanctuary city declaration.

I encourage everyone in Las Cruces to attend the city council meeting on Oct. 6 at 1 p.m., at City Hall, to hear the argument for or against the modifications and decide for themselves if Las Cruces is falling prey to the engineered pitfalls of ideology.

Shawna Pfeiffer is a life-long Dona Ana County Resident, graduate of NMSU, small business owner, hobby farmer, dog-lover, outdoor enthusiast and mother to two young children. She can be reached at srpfeiffer1@gmail.com.