Mayor Tim Keller’s administration says Albuquerque will continue to be an “immigrant friendly city” in response to new federal policies put in place by President Donald Trump aimed at cracking down on immigration offenses.
“We won’t turn our local police into immigration agents or target people because of their status or skin color,” Keller said in a statement.
Trump issued executive orders on Monday trying to end birthright citizenship and declaring a national emergency at the U.S.-Mexico border. One of the orders directs federal officials to “undertake any lawful actions to ensure that so-called ‘sanctuary’ jurisdictions, which seek to interfere with the lawful exercise of Federal law enforcement operations, do not receive access to Federal funds.”
Despite this directive, Albuquerque will stay a “sanctuary city” and stick to following the city law that prohibits city employees and police officers from asking about or documenting immigration status.
“We believe everyone in our city should be able to report crimes and take their kids to school, church, or the hospital without fear of having their family torn apart,” Keller said in a statement. “[Albuquerque Police Department] officers will continue to arrest violent and repeat offenders–regardless of immigration status.”
Staci Drangmeister, a Keller spokesperson, told City Desk ABQ that “dangerous policies and hateful rhetoric targeting immigrants not only make our communities less safe by discouraging crime reporting, they also follow a dark historical pattern of punishing entire groups of people for political gain.”
This makes sense since our police department already does essentially nothing for the contributing taxpayers of our city. Keep up the terrible work! You are awful Tim, I wish I could get away with being terrible at my job like you can!