Lansing, Michigan’s Capital, Rescinds Sanctuary City Resolution

LANSING, MI — Michigan’s capital city was a safe place for undocumented immigrants for exactly nine days before Lansing officials reversed course Wednesday, rescinding a controversial sanctuary city vote that could have cost the city $6.5 million in federal grant funding. Police will still follow a don’t ask-don’t tell policy when immigrants are arrested or witness a crime under Mayor Virg Bernero’s earlier order.

The city council’s sanctuary city declaration, which passed on a 6-0 vote on April 3, was reversed, 5-2, after widely raised fears the city could lose the federal funding.

Days after he took office in January, President Trump issued an executive order stating that local jurisdictions that harbor undocumented immigrants would be stripped of federal grant money.

“Sanctuary city” isn’t a legal definition but generally applies to cities that don’t cooperate with federal immigration agents. Despite the kerfuffle over the sanctuary city resolution, it didn’t change much in Lansing, which already had designated itself a “welcoming city.” Neither designation prohibited officials from cooperating with U.S. immigration officials.

What Bernero’s executive order did do was prohibit police officers from stopping, arresting or interrogating individuals based solely on their immigration status and from asking crime victims or witnesses about their immigration status. It required that all individuals, regardless of citizenship status, be subject to the same booking, processing, release and transfer procedures, policies and practices of the police department. The executive order didn’t specifically mention “sanctuary city,” though the now-rescinded resolution did declare “the City of Lansing a sanctuary city.”

Business groups had lobbied hard against the April 3 designation, including the Lansing Regional Chamber and Michigan Chamber of Commerce, both of which asked city officials to remove sanctuary city references and focus on economic issues, The Detroit News reported.

“I have no problem with the earlier resolution that affirmed the city’s status as a welcoming city,” Michigan Chamber President and CEO Richard Studley said. “The challenge is with the language declaring the city a ‘sanctuary city’ — adopted hastily with little debate. I think that it is easily misinterpreted or misunderstood.”

At Wednesday’s meeting, proponents of the sanctuary city designation said the City Council designation doesn’t jeopardize the federal money. About six dozen people addressed officials prior to the vote reversing course, including about 25 people — many of them Trump supporters — who opposed the designation, the Lansing State Journal reported.

“The term ‘sanctuary’ in the resolution has become very problematic and distracting — so distracting in my opinion that’s it’s taken away from the intent of our resolution, which is to protect individuals,” Councilwoman Judi Brown Clarke said. “It’s basically a ‘don’t ask’ policy, which was outlined by the mayor’s executive order and what we had in our policy complements that.”

Ultimately, the council voted to rescind the earlier vote and move on to more pressing matters. Some proponents of making Lansing a sanctuary city said the council members were “spineless” and would face retribution by voters in future elections.

Bernero, who sparked the controversy with his executive order, wasn’t at the meeting. Instead, he appeared on Fox News’ “Tucker Carlson Tonight” program, where he defended the policy while at the same time announcing the City Council was reconsidering it after “democracy in action.”

The mayor rejected criticism that Lansing was “opening the floodgates” to undocumented immigrants but said he has no objection to law-abiding immigrants, regardless of their legal status, moving to Lansing.

He hedged on whether a drunken driving arrest would be enough to prompt deportation proceedings. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has said he doesn’t think a drunken driving arrest should be grounds for deportation. Bernero agreed on first-time offenses but said if the incident resulted in harm to others or was a repeat offense, it could rise to the level of deportation proceedings.

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