A Home for All— How Ithaca, NY has Fared as a Sanctuary City

Figure 1- "Aurora Street: Ithaca, NY" by aimeedars is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

What is a Sanctuary City?

Sanctuary can mean many different things in different contexts. There is no one definition of a sanctuary city. However, broadly stated, a sanctuary city can be described as a city (or a county, or a state) that minimizes its cooperation with federal immigration enforcement agents with the intention of protecting low-priority immigrants from deportation, while still turning over those who have committed serious crimes or pose a serious threat. Thus, many prefer to call such cities, counties and states “safe cities” instead.

Ithaca, NY’s Sanctuary City Policy

Back in 2017, during the Trump administration, Ithaca’s Common Council unanimously voted to readjust Ithaca’s Sanctuary City policy, which was initially passed in 1985, for Salvadoran and Guatemalan refugees. With this readjustment, Ithaca’s status as a sanctuary city establishes that city officials, including police officers, now are directed to not explicitly ask an individual for their immigration status— unless that person is actively committing a crime regarding their status. In other words, the legal ordinance designates that local law enforcement will not enforce federal immigration laws.

This ordinance, which remains in place, was specifically passed in response to and despite of Trump announcing two executive orders back in 2017. Trump's executive orders urged sanctuary cities throughout the US to stop their limitation with federal immigration enforcement. If these sanctuary cities refused, Trump asserted that they would thus lose funding.

The City of Ithaca decided to pass this ordinance, despite Trump's executive order, explaining that Ithaca would be just fine without the grants Trump declared would be taken away. The proposed grants jurisdictions would lose were specifically from the Department of Justice and Homeland Security. Ithaca usually does not receive grants from the Department of Justice and receives minimal funds from Homeland Security.

Trump's order was additionally declared with the statement that Sanctuary Cities have caused “immeasurable harm to the American people.”

Data Analysis on Sanctuary Cities

Ithaca’s 2017 ordinance on this matter was passed after examining an array of data gathered by the Center for American Progress and the National Immigration Law Center. Data from the Center for American Progress and the National Immigration Law Center both indicate the opposite of Trump’s statement that sanctuary cities are harmful. According to the analysis from these centers, Sanctuary Cities rather show lower crime rates and higher economic well-being. Additionally, these cities rather have higher median rates of income, lower rates of unemployment and lower rates of poverty.

Main findings in this analysis regarding Sanctuary Cities:

• On average, 35.5 fewer crimes committed per 10,000 people in sanctuary counties compared to non-sanctuary counties

• On average, median household annual income is $4,353 higher in sanctuary counties compared to non-sanctuary counties

• On average, the poverty rate is 2.3 percent lower in sanctuary counties compared to non-sanctuary counties

• On average, unemployment is 1.1 percent lower in sanctuary counties compared to non-sanctuary counties

Figure 2- ““We Are One Somerville: Sanctuary City Rally”" by Chris Devers is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Biden Administration Sanctuary Policy

With the shift to the Biden administration, the federal government has gone an opposite route, ending the Trump-era policy that denied sanctuary cities from receiving various forms of government funding. In April of 2021, the Justice Department officially declared that grants would resume to those sanctuary jurisdictions that were previously denied such funds.

Sanctuary Policy Across Jurisdictions

Although Ithaca’s Sanctuary City policy states that local city officials, including police officers, will not explicitly ask an individual for their immigration status— unless that person is actively committing a crime regarding their status, Sanctuary City policies can take on other forms as well.

Sanctuary City policies have commonly also included limiting information shared with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) or denying ICE access to jails without a warrant.

Regardless of the form Sanctuary policies take, these policies all exist with the intentions of limiting the extent to which local jurisdictions will assist the federal government in enforcing their immigration policies. Courts have consistently held that such policies do comply with federal law.

To learn more about Ithaca’s Sanctuary status, check out my previous reporting for WRFI Community Radio News.