Texas Sanctuary Cities Law Goes To Court (Audio)

now banned sanctuary cities in the longe Star state. The four largest cities in Texas joined a lawsuit brought by El Sensio, arguing that the law threatens the guarantees of free speech and equal protection. Here's Mayor raw reyes of El Censio's hate and we know better than this. Joining us is Rick Sue, professor at the University of Buffalo School of Law. Rick, the Trump administration has been fighting so called sanctuary cities since day one. What are the

most restrictive provisions of this Texas law? Uh So, the most restricted provisions actually have to deal with the penalties. Um. This is sort of a unique law in terms of the fact that, uh it authorizes removal of officials if they were to endorse or have a pattern of practice of not cooperating and also letting fines directly against the city. So, as you can see, with the Trump administration, a law of discussion has been about how do we actually compel

cities to do a particular course of action. Uh. Trump administration has threatened to withdraw federal funding. Uh. The state here has gone even further than that with removable office and direct fines. Well, rick laws defenders say it's not a show me your papers kind of law. That it's more. Although it's a very strong law, say Texas officials, it doesn't. It doesn't go as far as some other laws might. But what exactly does this law do in regard to

sanctuary cities? Uh? So it does two things. First, has a very broad provision, arguably vague, with regard to any effort to UM restrict any official from not not participating with the federal government immigration enforcement. UM. I say this as broad because it doesn't just target specific so called sanctuary policies. UH. It would actual target endorsement or any types of things that may be suggested to be pattern or practice. We'll see what the court decided that to be.

The second has to do with this issue of detainers and these are federal requests for local law enforcement to hold a particular individual for up just fourty eight hours so that the federal government can pick that individual up. There were many cities that were concerned about the costs, concerned about the liability that comes with doing so, that have decided not to participate or participate only in select rounds. Uh. This particular law, as before, would mandate participation and cooperation

with detainer requests in all cases. Rick, what are the cities arguing? I think the city is arguing two things. UM. I think on the one hand, they are concerned about the policy and escalation enforcement. On the other hand, it's very mundane and things that local communities are concerned about in various other contexts. Uh. They're concerned that this is an unfunded mandate, their substantial costs that are associated with it, and as far as I can see, neither the federal

government or the state are interested in reimbursing those costs. UH. They're concerned about priorities. UM. Right now we have a decentralized system of law enforcement. Communities decide what is their priority. What is the biggest concern is that opiate epidemic. Is it murders is a gun shooting, gain violence is a robberies. UH. And they're concerned that this essentially frustrates their ability to

set priorities. UH if they have to tolerate and allow in some ways, UH force their law enforcement officials to focus on immigration when something else might be more important. Rick the you know, one can posit a lot of policy disagreements, but you know that the state made this policy judgment. Are their constitutional grounds against this law that the municipalities and counties can raise. So this is actually

what makes this law very interesting. UM. When the federal government, for example, as the Trump administration is doing, trying to compel participation, there is constitutional protections there for local governments and local officials, but only because they are part of the state. The constitution puts a barrier, if you will, that prevents the federal government for forcing states to do

certain things that they don't want to do. Here, it's interesting, right because there isn't any federal constitutional protections, though some are the arguments are being raised, UH that protects cities from their own states. The Constitution protects states and cities as part of the state, but there's nothing in the

federal constitution that protects cities from the state. Now it does raise the interesting question is whether or not UH in Texas and other states there may be state constitutional protections with regard to what the state can do in terms of forcing their own local governments to follow their lead. So rick they're asking a federal judge the cities are to stop the law from going to effect on September one, while the case winds its way through the legal system.

Where are the chances the judge will do that? I think there is so it's always hard to predict what a judge will do. Um And in some ways this case is interesting because although many cities have jumped in, it was actually the state that sued first. Right they passed law and then immediately sued the cities. UM. There is signs from this particular judge that he is concerned about the authority that local governments have. For example, in

complying with detainer requests. He had an earlier decision that essentially held that the county itself was liable UH following a detainer request, even though the mistake was made by the federal government. UM So this may and I think there has been a lot of scramble to get it before this particular judge. So I think that there is a good chance, at least in the beginning, that we're going to have some sort of uh maybe a stay

or restraining order. All Right, we'll have to leave it there, Rick, super Professor of the University of Buffalo School of Law. Thanks for being with us.