INTERVIEW OPPORTUNITY
After an illegal immigrant and felon was charged with last week’s killing of a woman in San Francisco, the city’s status as a “sanctuary city” has come into question. “Sanctuary city policies are an important tool for local police departments which must build trust with immigrant communities in order to maintain public safety,” says Texas A&M University Professor of Law Huyen Pham, who specializes in the study of immigration law. “Federal immigration enforcement has been overly aggressive in recent years, leading to the deportations of very sympathetic people with long-standing ties in the U.S. and no criminal records.”
Pham notes there is a wide variety of these policies across the country and “San Francisco’s policy seems to be on one extreme. There are more moderate sanctuary policies that enable cities and local police departments to preserve their relations with immigrant communities and to cooperate with federal immigration authorities, with the related benefits for national security.”
Professor Pham is available for interviews by contacting Lesley Henton, Division of Marketing & Communications at Texas A&M University, at [email protected]
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