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    The Sanctuary Movement: How Broken Immigration Policies Affect Cities
    The Sanctuary Movement: How Broken Immigration Policies Affect Cities
    The Sanctuary Movement: How Broken Immigration Policies Affect Cities
    Ebook100 pages1 hour

    The Sanctuary Movement: How Broken Immigration Policies Affect Cities

    By Kyle W. Bell

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    About this ebook

    The current debate over immigration policy in the United States divides political parties and individuals alike. Both sides would agree that the immigration system is broken. Evidence of this systematic failure is glaring: there are twelve million undocumented immigrants living in the United States, the federal government lacks a comprehensive enforcement and naturalization strategy, and sanctuary cities have been created to protect undocumented immigrants from deportation.

    Cities such as Chicago and San Francisco have limited ability to deal with immigration issues, yet have acted to protect their citizens from deportation. By providing services to undocumented residents, cities have been forced to live with the consequences of an inadequate federal response to an issue that the Constitution delegates to the federal government. With a more sensible immigration strategy in place, there would be no need for sanctuary cities.

    This book explores the sanctuary city movement in detail. First, we will look at the life of an undocumented immigrant that came to America and now lives in a sanctuary city. Next, we will explore the history of immigration in the United States, how federal policy has changed over time, and how cities have responded to these changes. Finally, we will consider two examples of sanctuary cities: Chicago and San Francisco.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherKyle W. Bell
    Release dateDec 16, 2010
    ISBN9781458186447
    The Sanctuary Movement: How Broken Immigration Policies Affect Cities
    Author

    Kyle W. Bell

    Kyle W. Bell is a Master of Public Affairs graduate student at Indiana University South Bend. He resides in South Bend, Indiana, where he was born and raised. He was the recipient of the Indiana Black Expo's Martin Luther King Jr. Award in 2002. The following year he was awarded the Presidential Award for excellence in education. His research on sports development appeared in Indiana University South Bend's peer-reviewed Undergraduate Research Journal and a piece on gender stereotypes in the university's New Views on Gender publication. His writing interests have more recently taken him into the world of fiction. The 2011 short story "Ozzy" was inspired by real-life events surrounding the life and death of his grandparents. "Operation Bald Eagle" (2012) was his first spy novella, taking readers inside the role of a CIA operative as he embarked on a mission to prevent a Chinese cyber-attack on the United States. Its sequel, "Dusk Before Dawn" (2013), sees a Russian invasion of Ukraine in a plot that weaves international intrigue with the ugly underbelly of American presidential politics. Kyle is an avid reader, enjoys exercise, follows sports, and relishes a good meal whether it is prepared at a family-owned restaurant or in his own kitchen. He is the owner of Game Freaks 365, a video game website founded in 2003 with news and reviews. His personal blog, http://kylebell.com, focuses on both politics and his books. It is meant to generate ideas and debate on policy in a constructive manner.

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      Book preview

      The Sanctuary Movement - Kyle W. Bell

      The Sanctuary Movement: How Broken Immigration Policies Affect Cities

      Written by Kyle W. Bell

      Cover by Angel Cortes (cortesangel@live.com)

      Smashwords Edition - December 2010

      *********

      Copyright © Kyle W. Bell 2010

      License Notes:

      All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

      Table of Contents

      Introduction

      Life in a Sanctuary City: One Person’s Journey to Chicago

      Historical Perspective

      History of Immigration in the United States

      Rise of Sanctuary Cities

      Anti-Immigrant Backlash

      Case Study of Sanctuary Cities

      Chicago

      San Francisco

      Conclusion

      Appendix

      Sources

      About the Author

      Introduction

      The current debate over immigration policy in the United States divides political parties and individuals alike. Both sides would agree that the immigration system is broken. Evidence of this systematic failure is glaring: there are twelve million undocumented immigrants living in the United States, the federal government lacks a comprehensive enforcement and naturalization strategy, and sanctuary cities have been created to protect undocumented immigrants from deportation.

      Cities such as Chicago and San Francisco have limited ability to deal with immigration issues, yet have acted to protect their citizens from deportation. By providing services to undocumented residents, cities have been forced to live with the consequences of an inadequate federal response to an issue that the Constitution delegates to the federal government. With a more sensible immigration strategy in place, there would be no need for sanctuary cities.

      This book will explore the sanctuary city movement in detail. First, we will look at the life of an undocumented immigrant that came to America and now lives in a sanctuary city. Next, we will explore the history of immigration in the United States, how federal policy has changed over time, and how cities have responded to these changes. Finally, we will consider two examples of sanctuary cities: Chicago and San Francisco.

      Life in a Sanctuary City: One Person’s Journey to Chicago

      Imagine for a minute a country that would deport a person who spent their entire childhood and adult life here. Proponents of radical immigration enforcement call for exactly that. Those that were not born here, but spent the majority of their lives in the U.S., should be sent to their home country, according to this argument. These anti-immigrant proponents do not believe that the 14th Amendment to the Constitution should exist and their allies on Capitol Hill have called for a Constitutional amendment to repeal birthright citizenship (Rosen 2010).

      Meet Alejandro (a pseudo-name that will be used in this paper to protect his identity). Talking with Alejandro, I learned that he was four years old when he came to the United States in 1989. He came from a small town of approximately 400 people in the Mexican state of Guerrero near the city of Acapulco. His father worked in his grandfather’s orchards and his mother was a schoolteacher in Mexico. Both of them were college graduates: his mother had a degree in teaching and his father a degree in ingeniero agronomo - an agronomist engineer.

      His father traveled to the United States before his mother and he. The original plan had been to come for work, send money home, and eventually return to Mexico. That changed when Alejandro and his mother immigrated to the U.S. It seemed that the outlook for our family was not very good at that time, Alejandro said. His siblings were left behind in Mexico with their grandparents while both parents worked to earn money.

      After a year, he and his mother returned to Mexico. They lived in a mud house, which was torn down to make way for a proper brick house with the money she earned in America. Their time in Mexico was short-lived as his mother decided again to move back to the United States.

      The trek to America was an arduous one. When I asked him to recall the trip, he told me that a trip sounds like it was just a walk in the park. However, that could not be further from the truth. His mother was robbed at gunpoint by the Federales, the Mexican Federal Police, taking everything that they owned. When they eventually crossed into America, they did so at Tijuana, crossing into California. They stayed in San Diego where his mother’s sister lived. From there, they flew to Chicago.

      When he first came to the country, Alejandro’s father worked as a temporary worker in factories. Otherwise, both of his parents spent most of their time working at restaurants. It was in many ways a step down from their careers in Mexico, but the pay was better. The family lived on the Northwest Side of Chicago, in Wicker Park, near the intersection of Damen Avenue and Augusta Boulevard. Their house was behind the restaurant where his parents worked together at the time. Alejandro did not have many friends in the neighborhood, nor did his family do much outside of the home. Maybe sometimes we would go to the park, or shopping for groceries, or shopping around Chicago Avenue, but we didn't really venture farther than that, he told me.

      Despite the new surroundings, his family felt safe in Chicago. As a young child, however, he knew that he did not exist in normal conditions. He lacked stability and security that came with being an undocumented immigrant. My parents always talked about moving back to Mexico. There was a deadline set, too. When my siblings graduated high school, we would move back. His life was full of uncertainty at an early age. Today, his father works for a small company in Chicago washing windows. His mother no longer works and has health problems related to her diabetes.

      Alejandro went to school at Hans Christian Andersen Academy from Kindergarten

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