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Donald and Melania Trump Cold Open - SNL

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If the next president's immigration agenda includes a pitched battle over "sanctuary" cities, a term Donald Trump uses with disgust, the proper response from places like New York will be: Bring it on.

The word "sanctuary" as Mr. Trump deploys it - a place where immigrant criminals run amok, shielded from the long arm of federal law - is grossly misleading, because cities with "sanctuary" policies cannot obstruct federal enforcement and do not try to. Instead, they do what they can to welcome and support immigrants, including the unauthorized, and choose not to participate in deportation crackdowns they see as unjust, self-defeating and harmful to public safety.

New York City wears that kind of "sanctuary" label proudly. As California considers bold steps to shield its residents from a possible Trump immigration assault, the New York City Council has already built its own strong web of protections. A groundbreaking City Council program has provided free legal representation for children who fled violence in Central America and arrived unaccompanied at the border. Of 1,265 cases accepted under the program, 72 children were granted asylum and 55 obtained lawful permanent residency. The Council has expanded health and legal services in immigrant communities. And it passed bills to keep federal immigration agents out of the Rikers Island jails, and to forbid city police and corrections officers from detaining suspects for deportation, unless there is a judge's warrant.

Mayor Bill de Blasio, who signed both bills, has also promised since the election to defend immigrant residents from other possible threats, like a registry of Muslims and a roundup of unauthorized immigrants. The city will stop saving the personal records of residents who apply for its municipal ID card, to prevent the data from being abused for a deportation purge.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo has echoed these sentiments, promising, though without specifics, that New York State will begin expanding legal assistance for immigrants in the coming year. The effort will be welcome should Mr. Trump begin to lower the boom on unauthorized immigrants - though it's impossible to know the details of what he will do, given the volatility and imprecision of his many immigration-related threats and promises.

Whatever forms the purge takes, the sanctuary forces will have to be resolute in opposition. One good thing: New York and its allies in cities across the country, in governments, schools and churches, will have the public on their side. A recent Global Strategy Group poll found that Americans oppose, 58 percent to 28 percent, repealing President Obama's DACA program, which shields the young immigrants called Dreamers from deportation. A Quinnipiac poll taken after the election found that Americans strongly support - 72 percent to 25 percent - allowing unauthorized immigrants to stay, with 60 percent supporting a path to citizenship. This support is higher than at any point in the four years it has been asking the question, Quinnipiac said.

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If the next president's immigration agenda includes a pitched battle over "sanctuary" cities, a term Donald Trump uses with disgust, the proper response from places like New York will be: Bring it on.

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Is it legal to maintain sanctuary cities?

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Fox News Senior Judicial Analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano on whether Mayor Rahm Emanuel is breaking the law by keeping Chicago a sanctuary city.

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Please reconnect to your EBSCO service through your library.

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While I am sympathetic to the plight of immigrants in our country, I also understand the need for all states to comply with federal laws. States and cities should not get to choose which laws they obey. Such political attitudes harken back to the defiant lawlessness of states' rights in the South.

Sanctuary cities in the United States and Canada enforce policies to protect illegal immigrants from what people in these cities see as unfair immigration policies. These cities defy "unfair" immigration policies by choosing not to enforce them by having their police withhold information on criminal immigrants from federal immigration officials. Thus illegal immigrants, including those with criminal convictions, escape prison and deportation.

Congress is in the process of enacting legislation to penalize sanctuary cities by denying federal funds for other programs. This comes in the wake of the brutal slaying of 32-year-old Kate Steinle, allegedly by an illegal alien, in the sanctuary city of San Francisco.

The alleged killer is an illegal immigrant and a seven-time felon who had been deported to Mexico five times. The indifference of San Francisco's politicians to Steinle's murder, from City Hall to the halls of Congress, is alarming and Washington lawmakers crafted Kate's Law to make sanctuary cities accountable for enforcing federal immigration policy to protect other innocent people.

Defiance to federal laws by cities like San Francisco harkens to a darker time in our nation's history. While Washington was enacting civil rights and voting rights legislation to stop Southern disenfranchisement of African-Americans, racist politicians defied these laws in favor of state laws that upheld the poison of segregation.

Southern politicians like Alabama's George Wallace maintained that Alabama law was superior to laws made in Washington by, what he called, "pointy-headed liberals." The state of Alabama, Wallace said, knew what was best for Alabamians, including African-Americans, and according to Wallace a system of racial segregation was best.

Wallace's argument was outrageous. Schools for Alabama's black children were inferior to those of white students. He did not see a problem with that and refused to comply with federal laws to integrate the University of Alabama and all public schools.

Segregation eventually fell in the Deep South, but with the support and guns of the National Guard There was a breakdown of law and order in Alabama and Washington and the military had to step in.

Sanctuary cities also represent a breakdown in law and order. Defiant city mayors and city council members who ambitiously want to advance their political careers support policies - in this case, immigration policies - counter to those set by Congress. They believe their wisdom is greater than Washington's on immigration policy.

These defiant sanctuary city politicians are the modern-day political equivalents of Wallace from the 1960s, except now it is "pointy-headed conservatives" making policies they do not like because it does not fit their political agenda. Ergo, they will ignore Washington and mismanage immigration policy themselves.

Mismanaged sanctuary city policies increase the hateful anti-immigrant rhetoric from politicians like GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump and others. It also prevents action on serious legislation to improve immigration policy.

It is a gross generalization for Trump to project an image of all Mexican immigrants as killers and rapists. It is equally wrong for cities to harbor killers and rapists and act as though nothing is wrong with sanctuary city policies.

Supporters of the sanctuary city movement should have considered that criminals and killers would take advantage of sanctuary protections for devious purposes, including rape and murder. Yet, as crimes escalate in brutality in sanctuary cities, the politicians tell Washington that things are safer due to their sanctuary policies. This is the distorted logic of George Wallace from 50 years ago, applied to a different social problem.

Kate Steinle was not safe in the sanctuary city of San Francisco. Congress should pass Kate's Law before more innocent people are killed.
Patterson is a former diplomat who blogs at www.HumanRightsIssues.com.

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While I am sympathetic to the plight of immigrants in our country, I also understand the need for all states to comply with federal laws. States and cities should not get to choose which laws they obey. Such political attitudes harken back to the defiant lawlessness of states' rights in the South.

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This explains how the immigration officers have power of deporting undocumented immigrants everywhere else except sanctuary cities.

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This explains that liberals in sanctuary cities are thinking that this is the "Poster Child" of undocumented citizens in the Sanctuary Cities.