Full Measure is a weekly Sunday news program “focusing on investigative, original and accountability reporting.”
Following are excerpts from the
transcript of the Jan. 22, 2017 program, which featured opinions from several key speakers. Speaking in favor of ending sanctuary city policies were Jan Ting, professor of law at Temple University, and parents of victims who died at the hands of criminal illegal aliens.
SANCTUARY CITIES
[Excerpts from TV program]
January 22, 2017 — In the 1940s, Jan Ting’s parents faced a difficult path to American citizenship following a U.S. immigration ban on Chinese workers that lasted 61 years.
Jan Ting: '43 just opened the door to Chinese 100 a year. One hundred per year could come in as immigrants.
Today, Ting is a law professor at Temple University—after serving as a top immigration official under George H.W. Bush.
Ting: I teach citizenship and immigration law, among other things.
Ting is also a strong opponent of sanctuary cities that shield illegal immigrants from deportation. That includes Philadelphia, where Temple University is located.
Ting: I think that it is wrong, I think it endangers public safety, I think it endangers our law enforcement officers, and it's just short-sighted.
…
Kevin Kamentez: it is our policy in general that Baltimore County [MD] police officers do not ask the immigration status of anyone that they encounter. That's not their job.
Baltimore County executive Kevin Kamenetz supports his county’s sanctuary status even as he disputes the term.
Kamenetz: And if you are otherwise here in this county and you haven't committed a crime, that is you're otherwise law-abiding, then we are not going to interfere with that relationship whatsoever.
Critics offer a compelling counterpoint: cases of illegal immigrants trampling on the rights of U.S. citizens like Kate Steinle. Less than four months before her murder in 2015, San Francisco authorities had refused a request from ICE to hold her accused killer for possible deportation. He had five previous deportations and seven felonies on record.
There are thousands of horrifying examples.
Don Rosenberg: Especially in San Francisco, they become a protected class. Whatever they do, they get away with.
Don Rosenberg's son, Drew was on his way home from law school in the sanctuary city of San Francisco when he was run over and killed by an illegal immigrant.
Laura Wilkerson’s son, Josh, was murdered a high school classmate and illegal immigrant with an arrest record.
Laura Wilkerson: He hit him so hard in the stomach that it made his spleen go into the spine and it sliced it in two. Then, he tortured him by strangling him then, he put him in a field and he set his body on fire.
And Sabine Durden's only child, Dominic, was a 911 dispatcher in the sanctuary state of California when he was hit and killed by an illegal immigrant with a long rap sheet.
Sabine Durden: He had a prior felony conviction, then he had a DUI. And he got put on probation with a DUI even though he had no license, no insurance, and no registration. So then he had another DUI while he was on probation for the first DUI.
In one recent two-year period, more than 66-thousand illegal immigrant criminals were set loose after being arrested in the U.S. Among them, they had 166-thousand convictions; 30,000 for drunk or drugged driving, 414 kidnappings, 11-thousand rapes or other types of assaults, and 395 homicides. Within a year, thousands of them had already been re-arrested and convicted of new crimes in the U.S., including felonies and gang offenses.
…
Kamenetz: To somehow suggest in, in a political fit here, to, to say okay, Baltimore County, we're going to take away the 110 million dollars you received of federal aid every year, well you know what that money actually goes to? It goes to senior citizens, it goes to people who have mental illness// I think it really is, somewhat spiteful to hurt people who have nothing to do with the immigration issue, in order to achieve their political goals.
But Ting hopes the Trump administration acts quickly and forcefully.
Ting: I think they need to announce clearly that they are going to use executive authority to cut off as much federal funding as possible, to all sanctuary cities, and if, if those communities want to litigate the issue, bring it on.