Evanston officials will consider over the coming months what it means to be a sanctuary city for undocumented immigrants, according to City Manager Wally Bobkiewicz.
Municipalities around the country, including Chicago, have reaffirmed their status as haven cities in the wake of Donald Trump’s victory in the presidential election. In a news release issued Sunday, Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s administration indicated that Chicago 311 operators had received “special instructions” to assist callers worried about their immigration status in Chicago and the country.
Bobkiewicz said Evanston staff and City Council members plan to take a look at Evanston’s current sanctuary city resolution, which was adopted in 2008, and potentially update it to reflect what the city is prepared to do given present circumstances. He said the renewed look at the issue was prompted by comments from community members who told city officials they were worried about what would happen to their undocumented immigrant family members once Trump takes control of the White House. Trump repeatedly employed anti-immigrant rhetoric while on the campaign trail, vowing to build a wall along the U.S. southern border and have Mexico pay for it and promising to halt Muslim immigration into the country.
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“This is something that is hitting home just within municipal government here and we are a tiny, tiny microcosm of all this. This is an issue many communities will face,” Bobkiewicz said.
Bobkiewicz said his understanding of the resolution passed eight years ago is that it was the city’s way of saying “our community values many people and immigrants as an important part of the community.”
“What Evanston has to do now is come back and take a fresh look in very particular terms for what it means in 2016 (to be a sanctuary city),” he said.
He said staff will share with aldermen at their next several City Council meetings what steps other cities have implemented to cement their status as towns supportive of undocumented immigrants and any repercussions those places faced as a result. Bobkiewicz said staff will also try to get a sense of what actions the federal government may take in regards to immigration enforcement once the Trump administration assumes control.
On the campaign trail, Trump told an audience in Phoenix in September that “cities that refuse to cooperate with federal authorities will not receive taxpayer dollars, and we will work with Congress to pass legislation to protect those jurisdictions that do assist federal authorities.”
While researching the issue, Bobkiewicz said he learned “there are some communities that have taken policy positions that are now contrary to state and federal laws and (those communities) are prepared to deal with the consequences. That is not a conversation that the (Evanston) City Council had.”
In the coming months, he said, city officials will have to decide what actions they’re comfortable taking in the face of possible pushback from the federal government.
The process will start Nov. 28 “and take us well into the new year,” Bobkiewicz said.
Evanston Police Cmdr. Joe Dugan said the city’s police officers do not investigate or inquire about a person’s immigration status “for the sole purpose of determining if they are in violation of any immigration laws.”
“We pretty much treat everybody the same. We practice equal enforcement of the law regardless of immigrant status,” he said.
Dugan estimated the last time the department worked with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to detain someone was over a decade ago. He said the department has limited contact with immigration enforcement officials and they will continue to operate under the auspices of the sanctuary cities resolution passed in 2008 until the council takes any further action on the issue.
When asked if the department was concerned that undocumented immigrants may now be hesitant to call police when in need of service, Dugan said, “I hope not.”
Bobkiewicz said the meeting in 2008 in which council members passed the resolution included an extremely lengthy discussion and lasted well into the early hours of the next day.
Lee V. Gaines is a freelancer.