Opinion of "sanctuary cities"?

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

It depends on the extent to which it is taken. Cities who say, in effect, "hey, immigration is governed by federal law, so we'll let the feds handle this," then they are merely respecting the Constitutional separation of powers¹. Actively obstructing federal attempts to enforce the law is another matter, however, is a clear violation of the Constitution and should be treated as such.

For the record, I think current immigration statute is backwards and immoral and hope that the next president will be able to make headway on this issue: however, government officials cannot simply ignore the laws with which they disagree. I opposed Kim Davis' actions on the same grounds, and it would be hypocritical to take the opposite stance now.



¹ I'm sure the conservatives here will disagree with me vhemently on this, but there is a precedent for leaving the enforcement of federal laws to the federal government. During Prohibition, enforcement of the Volstead Act was largely seen as a federal responsibility: Ken Burns argues that the 18th Amendment failed in part because it made enforcement of anti-liquor laws a federal responsibility, and thus took local officials - many of whom had been successfully enforcing state-level prohibition laws for years - off the beat.