A few months ago, I was in a rush at the store, and I grabbed a bottle of conditioner because its beige bottle, earthy scent, and carefully worded label made it seem like it was “natural” and “eco-friendly.” Only later, upon a closer read, did I realize I had been duped. Glancing at words like “simple” and “clean,” I had made some quick assumptions about the company and product. But the reality is, there was nothing to it. This was just your garden variety, chemical-filled conditioner, dressed up and priced up to look like it was socially responsible.
The concept of using branding to make a product, or institution, or person seem more socially responsible than it is, is really common. But it’s not something that I ever thought to associate with…sanctuary cities.
But that is a big part of the argument that Peter Mancina is making in his recent book, On the Side of ICE: Policing Immigrants in a Sanctuary State. On our most recent episode of the podcast, Mancina told Code Switch that both Republicans and Democrats oversell the extent to which sanctuary jurisdictions provide safe harbor. And that is important for people broadly to understand, especially as tensions heat up between the public, federal immigration enforcement, and local government and police departments.
Erin Hooley/AP
“Moderate progressives and the left, they often say, ‘Let's make a sanctuary policy because it's protectionist. We're gonna be the heroes of immigrants,’” Mancina said on the pod. “The right villainize it, saying, ‘These cities are harboring immigrants.’ Which is a different way of saying they're protecting immigrants, they're just doing it illegally… And so I'm trying to pop this political bubble around this topic by saying neither of you are right.” Mancina says that while sanctuary laws can create some specific safeguards around immigration enforcement, in practice, local police departments in sanctuary states and cities work as “force multipliers” for Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers. In other words, those police departments often wind up providing ICE officers with huge amounts of information and operational support that they wouldn’t necessarily have on their own.
That can look a lot of different ways, Mancina says. It has taken the form of local police taking on the task of crowd control when protesters are trying to intervene in immigration raids. It has meant police officers offering up identifying information to federal immigration officers about certain undocumented people who are tagged as potentially dangerous, even when those police departments have agreed not to share information that could help in a deportation proceeding. It has involved shooing neighbors and witnesses away from a scene when ICE is trying to question or arrest someone.
So the term “sanctuary city” may not be as meaningless as the term “clean hair care.” But creating true safe havens for immigrants seems like it will require a much more robust set of laws, practices and protections than most sanctuary jurisdictions are currently able to provide.
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ON THE POD
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In honor of MLK Day, we sat down with historian Nicholas Buccola, the author of One Man’s Freedom, a book that looks at the concept of "freedom" by comparing the legacies of Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. and conservative politician Barry Goldwater. In our conversation, Buccola revealed the gulf between Goldwater's abstract view of freedom and King's focus on the tangible fight for dignity and liberty, from lunch counter to bus seats to workplaces.
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Fam, that's it from me today. But I want to hear from you. What's been on your mind lately? What's keeping you up at night? What's helping you sleep soundly? Write to me at CodeSwitch@npr.org and help me make sense of the world. (And if you can, help me find a good curly hair conditioner that's actually eco-friendly and ethically produced. Pretty please?)
East Coasters, I hope you're bundled up and have a nice stew going. Sending solidarity from Los Angles (we had a couple drops of rain this morning.)
-Leah Donnella, senior editor
Written by Leah Donnella and editedby Dalia Mortada
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