The California TRUST Act Reduced Deportations

Sanctuary policies on the city, county, and state level are frequently in the news.   Opponents claim that they increase crime in jurisdictions while proponents claim that they allow illegal immigrants, their families, and their American neighbors to rest a little easier knowing that the local government won’t help the federal government enforce its immigration laws.  Both sid es assume that sanctuary policies produce those results by decreasing the scope and scale of immigration enforcement within their jurisdictions that, in turn, reduce the number of deportations from there.There are undoubtedlyindividual cases where a sanctuary policy helps a person avoid deportation, but the more important question is whether they reduce deportations overall.   If there isn’t much of an impact, then the debate over sanctuary policies is just a costly diversion from other issues.  However, if sanctuary policies do reduce deportations, then perhaps pro-immigration activists and policy-makers should devote more effort to increase their number.  Likewis e, opponents of sanctuary policies should also stop opposing them if they don’t have an impact on deportations but expand their opposition if they do reduce deportations by a lot  There is suggestive evidence thatsanctuary policies reduce deportations but manyreasons to also be skeptical of big effects.   We decided to look at how the California TRUST Act reduced deportations from California.  Governor Jerry Brown (D) signed ...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs