Friday’s New York Times featured wall-to-wall scare-mongering over Donald Trump’s opposition to illegal immigration, and placed the perfectly respectable term “sanctuary cities” in scare quotes, as if was somehow out of bounds.
Reporter Julia Preston, perhaps the paper’s worst offender when it comes to producing biased, pro-amnesty stories (and that's some stiff competition) struck twice in Friday’s edition. “In Immigration Enforcement Debate, a Split on the Role of the Police” featured “sanctuary cities” enclosed in unnecessary scare quotes, something the Times does with phrases popular with conservatives, like “death tax.” The Times also prefers the liberal locution “undocumented” rather than the more blunt “illegal” to refer to illegal immigrants.
In Donald Trump’s telling, there are places across America that have become dangerous oases for criminals, where foreign lawbreakers roam the streets without fear of the authorities.
Using the label “sanctuary cities,” Mr. Trump vowed in his hard-edge immigration speech in Phoenix on Wednesday to force such jurisdictions to abandon their policies protecting undocumented immigrants or face the loss of federal funding.
“We will end the sanctuary cities that have caused so many needless deaths,” Mr. Trump said. “No more funds!”
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In limiting cooperation with the federal immigration authorities, some local law enforcement officials contend that they are making their jurisdictions safer by encouraging undocumented immigrants to take the risk of coming forward to report crimes. But those who see immigration violations as serious offenses contend that such policies lead to criminality.
Preston clearly considered this anecdote of an illegal driving without a license to be a feel-good story:
In 2014, the New York City Council passed a law that sharply limited the cooperation of the police and corrections departments with the federal enforcement authorities. The departments would honor a hold request only from a federal judge, and only if the subject had been convicted of a violent or serious crime.
Were it not for that city law, one 33-year-old man might have been sent back to Honduras this summer -- for hanging a green pine tree air-freshener on his rearview mirror. In July, the man, who spoke on the condition that only his middle name, Omar, would be used since he does not have legal status, was pulled over while driving in Queens.
According to his lawyer, Su Yon Yi, of Queens Law Associates, the police stopped him for a traffic violation -- obstructing the view while driving. The police then cited him for not having a driver’s license.
Omar pleaded guilty to driving without a license, paid a fine and was immediately released. Ms. Yi said that without the sanctuary policy in effect he might have been turned over to the immigration authorities.
So...it wasn’t just “hanging a green pine air-freshener on his rearview mirror,” but not having a driver’s license.
Preston struck again with “In Trump’s Immigration Policies, No Wavering From a Hard Line.”
With calls to end so-called sanctuary cities, create a deportation task force and maintain “zero tolerance for criminal aliens,” Donald J. Trump laid out a 10-point immigration plan on Wednesday in Phoenix that reverted to the tough, uncompromising talk on the issue that has powered his appeal to his strongest supporters. While he is no longer talking about immediately deporting the estimated 11 million people in the United States illegally, he also distanced himself from any notion that they could gain legal status anytime soon.
Preston again made with the scare quotes around "sanctuary cities." One can imagine the outrcry if a conservative jurisdiction abruptly decided it wouldn't recognize the federal right to an abortion as established by the Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade, or gay marriage. But Preston remains neutral at this liberal flouting of federal law.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, there are about 300 cities and towns in the United States that critics like Mr. Trump -- as well as some supporters of the practice -- have labeled “sanctuary cities.”
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While there had been speculation recently that Mr. Trump might be softening on legalization, he made it clear in Phoenix that his line is as hard as ever. He said there was “one route and one route only” for immigrants in the country illegally: “to return home and apply for re-entry like everybody else.” This self-deportation option seemed to echo a similar idea by Mitt Romney, the onetime governor of Massachusetts, when he was the Republican nominee in 2012.
Alan Rappeport reported that “Trump’s Fiery Immigration Speech Draws Backlash.” The text box: “Hopes are dashed among conservative Hispanics.”
Donald J. Trump faced a backlash on Thursday from some of his top conservative Hispanic supporters, who said their hopes that he was softening his immigration policy had been dashed by his fiery speech Wednesday night, which they said was anti-immigrant.
Mr. Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, had shown signs in recent weeks that he was prepared to take a more conciliatory approach to immigrants who had entered the country illegally, dropping talk of a deportation force and instead speaking of treating those immigrants in a fair and humane fashion.
Less than two weeks ago, he held a meeting with his Hispanic advisory council in Trump Tower, leaving attendees with the impression that he was working on a new plan that included a path to citizenship.
That impression faded in Phoenix on Wednesday night.
“There was so much hope,” said Jacob Monty, a member of the Hispanic advisory council who was at the meeting with Mr. Trump. “He used us as props.”
Rappeport gave Democrats room to take advantage.
Democrats sought to press their advantage with Hispanics on Thursday, describing Mr. Trump’s remarks as offensive and racist.
This was a dark and disturbing speech,” Senator Tim Kaine, Mrs. Clinton’s running mate, said on CBS. “This is the kind of anti-immigrant language that’s always had a tiny fringe support in this country, but it was a speech that’s not worthy of a president.”
Fernanda Santos supplied a sob story from Phoenix in the form of an illegal immigrant profile. “Worker Wishes Candidate Knew of His Pride and Toil.” The text box: “’I don’t drink. I don’t steal. I go to church on Sundays.’” (Since when does the Times celebrate Christian religious practice?)
He had heard about Donald J. Trump’s trip here on the news the night before and wondered: What if I could meet him? José Enrique Camacho had so much to tell Mr. Trump, but, “if I could say only one thing,” he said, “I’d tell him about how proud I am that my children, my family, are part of this country.”
