The tragic murder of a Houston police officer by an illegal immigrant who previously had been deported has lifted to high relief the city’s shameful “sanctuary” policy for dealing with illegal immigrants. The incident and the resulting outrage have forced the police department to revise the policy slightly, but arrests solely on the basis of illegal status in this country are still prohibited. Not only does this make a mockery of the rule of law but undermines the very notion of national sovereignty, that as a people with rights as citizens, we have the prerogative to determine who may and may not enter our country.
Even worse, the policy of local non-enforcement is defended by those who should know better on the basis that enforcement would be detrimental to the “fragile bonds of trust” between the law enforcement authorities and the illegal immigrant community. The culprits here are several—the employer/exploiters, the “one world/open border” crowd, and Anglo guilt for the plight of the illegals—but this duplicity is one more example of living a lie, and one that eats at the core of what citizenship in a republic under the rule of law should mean.
