James Gordon hopes to make the city safe for undocumented immigrants
Councillor James Gordon filed a notice of motion on Feb. 2 at City Hall to make Guelph an official city of sanctuary.
In an interview with GuelphToday, Gordon said, “The timing is right for it. Based on the events of this past week it looked like Guelph would be an obvious place to have this declared because of the nature of our community.”
In Canada, there are several cities that have declared themselves to be sanctuary cities, including Toronto and Hamilton according to an article published by GuelphToday. Currently there are talks about introducing this status in other Canadian cities including London, Ottawa, Vancouver, and Winnipeg.
Declaring a city to be a sanctuary has different impacts in various parts of North America. Setting the precedent allows undocumented immigrants to use city services and prevents the local law enforcement from asking for citizenship or visa information.
Gordon is quoted as saying, “In some ways it can be considered symbolic, but what better time to demonstrate—even just with the symbolism of it—that we stand against discrimination, exclusion and hate.”
GuelphToday reported that Gordon said he doesn’t expect any opposition to the motion, which will be discussed at the Feb 27 city council meeting.
In February of 2013, Toronto announced that it would become a sanctuary city joining 36 American cities including Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York. Although the vote in Toronto was mostly in favour, there were some city councillors who were worried that Toronto would be seen as an accomplice to crime.
Each city has a different way of enacting the declaration. The city has the option of writing a new law to support the motive, or instructing that the sanctuary status is simply observed through an honour system.
The number of Canadian cities considering extending their municipal protection to undocumented immigrants follows an executive order signed by U.S. President Donald Trump on Jan. 25. This order, which is available through the official governmental website for the White House, in an effort to rid America of “removable aliens,” states that, “Sanctuary jurisdictions across the United States willfully violate Federal law in an attempt to shield aliens from removal from the United States. These jurisdictions have caused immeasurable harm to the American people and to the very fabric of our Republic.”
The retaliation against American sanctuary “jurisdictions that fail to comply with applicable Federal law” is that they “[will] not receive Federal funds, except as mandated by law,” essentially stripping them of Federal funding until they repeal their sanctuary status.
According to the New York Times, in the U.S., there are currently four states, 364 counties, and 39 cities that have laws that limit how much the local police can cooperate with requests from federal authorities to hold immigrants in detention.
The idea of declaring a city as a sanctuary is to provide a humanitarian option for people who have fled difficult situations in other countries and allows them the opportunity to get back on their feet and potentially develop the resources needed to apply for citizenship.
Photo by Mido Melebari.