{"id":9066,"date":"2017-09-01T08:03:59","date_gmt":"2017-09-01T12:03:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/?p=9066"},"modified":"2017-09-01T08:08:35","modified_gmt":"2017-09-01T12:08:35","slug":"court-blocks-texas-law-punishing-sanctuary-cities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/2017\/09\/01\/court-blocks-texas-law-punishing-sanctuary-cities\/","title":{"rendered":"Court blocks Texas law punishing &#8216;sanctuary cities&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"story-body__introduction\">A US federal judge has halted a new Texan immigration law on &#8220;sanctuary cities&#8221; just two days before it is scheduled to go into effect.<\/p>\n<p>The bill aimed to force local law enforcement to obey requests from immigration officers to hold illegal immigrants for deportation.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Sanctuary cities&#8221; came under fire from Donald Trump in an executive order during his first week as president.<\/p>\n<p>The Texan law was due to come into effect on Friday.<\/p>\n<p>But on Wednesday, a federal judge ruled it was unlikely to withstand constitutional tests, and prevented implementation of key parts of the bill, called SB4.<\/p>\n<p>In a 94-page\u00a0<a class=\"story-body__link-external\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aclutx.org\/sites\/default\/files\/sb_4_ruling_august_30.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">decision<\/a>, US District Judge Orlando Garcia commented: &#8220;There is overwhelming evidence by local officials, including local law enforcement, that SB4 will erode public trust and make many communities and neighborhoods less safe.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;There is also ample evidence that localities will suffer adverse economic consequences which, in turn, harm the State of Texas.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>He said the court could not &#8220;second guess the legislature&#8221; but the state could not violate the constitution.<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-body__crosshead\"><strong>What is a &#8216;sanctuary city&#8217;?<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul class=\"story-body__unordered-list\">\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\">The term applies to cities in the US that have policies to limit the assistance given to federal immigration authorities<\/li>\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\">Officials in those areas, including local law enforcement, are not allowed to enquire as to an individual&#8217;s immigration status in the course of their duties<\/li>\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\">It is not a legal term so the way it is implemented can vary, but the policies can be set in law or just part of local policing practices<\/li>\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\">The idea got traction in the 1980s after Los Angeles told its police force to stop questioning people solely to determine their immigration status, in a bid to encourage immigrant communities to work with police<\/li>\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\">More than 400 jurisdictions across the US, including New York, San Francisco, Boston, Chicago and Seattle, have enacted policies protecting undocumented immigrants<\/li>\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\">Critics say these policies undermine federal law enforcement efforts and encourage illegal immigration<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Texas Governor Greg Abbott said the decision made &#8220;Texas&#8217; communities less safe&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>He said he would immediately appeal the decision and was confident the law would eventually be upheld.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Trump&#8217;s executive order in January covered a range of immigration issues but specifically targeted the 400 or so jurisdictions with policies protecting undocumented immigrants &#8211; nicknamed &#8220;sanctuary cities&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>The presidential order authorised the federal government to withhold funding from cities with such polices.<\/p>\n<p>The Texan bill, passed by the state legislature earlier this year, was set to be one of the first laws of its kind since Mr Trump&#8217;s order.<\/p>\n<p>Source: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/world-us-canada-41105121\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">bbc.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\">A US federal judge has halted a new Texan immigration law on &#8220;sanctuary cities&#8221; just two days before it is scheduled to go into effect. The bill aimed to force local law enforcement to obey <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/2017\/09\/01\/court-blocks-texas-law-punishing-sanctuary-cities\/\" title=\"Court blocks Texas law punishing &#8216;sanctuary cities&#8217;\">[&#8230;]<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9067,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[15,2,3],"tags":[2855,4124,4123,147],"class_list":{"0":"post-9066","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-human-rights","8":"category-news","9":"category-usa","10":"tag-immigration","11":"tag-sanctuary-cities","12":"tag-sb4","13":"tag-texas","14":"pmpro-has-access"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9066","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9066"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9066\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9068,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9066\/revisions\/9068"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9067"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9066"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9066"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9066"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}