SEATTLE NEWS ARCHIVES & FEATURES

Dori: Politicians who tout sanctuary city status ignore crucial data

Nov 14, 2018, 5:57 AM

Burien...

The Burien City Council voted to follow in Seattle's Sanctuary City footsteps. (Michael Allen Smith, Flickr)

(Michael Allen Smith, Flickr)

Sanctuary city status around here has been disastrous in so many respects, and we’ve talked about this extensively on the show.

Look at the gang problem, especially in Burien, a sanctuary city, and the south end of the county. If you heard my interview with King County Sheriff Mitzi Johanknecht when she announced that the county is starting a new gang unit, I asked her how many of the gang members are illegal immigrants. She does not know. The cops are not allowed to ask about citizenship when making arrests.

To which I ask, how can you solve a problem when you don’t know what the problem is? If the powers of politics and political correctness are stronger than truth, reason, and data, then how can you expect to solve the problem? Every cop around here knows that illegal immigrants play a huge role in our drug and gang problems.

But, the political leaders in this region have this plausible deniability — they can tell us all about how wonderful sanctuary city status is because they don’t have any evidence to refute or counterbalance that statement.

However, when an illegal immigrant goes on to commit a horrible crime, that usually comes out. This story is not local, but it illustrates the problem with sanctuary policy that is embraced statewide. In the news now, a 23-year-old illegal immigrant in New Jersey, Luiz Rodrigo Perez, was put in jail on a domestic violence charge and released. ICE put a detainer on him, but because he was in a sanctuary city, the request was not honored, and ICE was not notified when he was released. Instead of being deported, he was released back into society because political correctness is more important. He has now allegedly murdered three people.

But this will all fall on deaf ears with Jay Inslee, Dow Constantine, Jenny Durkan, every other mayor and county exec around here. They continue to tout the benefits of something, but they insist on not collecting any data that would refute the benefits that they cite. When it comes to politics around here, all of our politicians exhibit that ignorance is our lack of bliss.

RELATED: Burien mayor talks sanctuary city status after fatal shooting

Artifacts and memorabilia depicting the late Archbishop Fulton Sheen are displayed in the Sheen Mus...

Associated Press

Famed radio and TV priest Fulton Sheen to be beatified in St. Louis, a step away from sainthood

ST. LOUIS (AP) — Decades after he was a fixture on American TV screens, the late Archbishop Fulton Sheen is back in a familiar place: the media spotlight. Tens of thousands of Catholic devotees are converging on St. Louis for a formal ceremony of beatification on Thursday, in which the prelate will be designated Blessed […]

26 minutes ago

Michael Serpa, senior scientist at the Scottsdale Water Campus, works on water testing, Wednesday, ...

Associated Press

Scottsdale’s water recycling program hits election-year backlash

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. (AP) — A Phoenix suburb ditched a plan to send recycled water from toilets and other sources directly to residents’ taps, after political candidates made unproven claims that the water is contaminated “poop water.” The affluent city of Scottsdale mainly uses purified water from the city’s liquid waste to recharge aquifers that can […]

3 hours ago

Associated Press

Judge orders White House to restore access to news outlets Trump banned

WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge early Thursday temporarily blocked President Donald Trump’s move to ban three news outlets from the White House grounds and said CNN, MS NOW and Politico must have their access restored. It’s the latest development in an escalating showdown between President Donald Trump and media outlets whose coverage he dislikes. […]

5 hours ago

seattle street takeover shooting...

Frank Lenzi

Seattle street takeover shooting: Police identify everyone involved

Seattle police have identified everyone involved in a September 6 shooting connected to an illegal street takeover that left one person dead and three others wounded near 3rd Avenue and Clay Street.

6 hours ago

rainier beach shooting...

Frank Lenzi

Seattle’s Rainier Beach shooting leaves man wounded

A shooting in Seattle’s Rainier Beach neighborhood Wednesday evening left a man wounded, and the suspected shooter has not been caught, police said.

6 hours ago

A gull flies overhead as a boy stands with his bicycle on a beach overlooking commercial vessels an...

Associated Press

Gulf nations have found ways to keep oil flowing through the Iran war, but the costs are mounting

FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — When Iran shut down the Strait of Hormuz at the start of the war, choking off sea passage for some 15 million barrels of oil a day, many feared that prices would skyrocket, cratering the world economy. Instead, nearly seven months on, oil is expensive but not exorbitant, and analysts say […]

6 hours ago

Dori: Politicians who tout sanctuary city status ignore crucial data