NYT Urges Obama to Make US Sanctuary Nation

In an editorial on Monday titled, “Not One More,” the New York Times urged President Barack Obama to halt the deportations of illegal immigrants who are not violent criminals. 

The Times alleges that the 400,00 deportations a year by the Obama administration “are driven by politics, not public safety.”

“Immigration and Customs Enforcement has wide discretion to determine whom it detains and deports. It can retool all its policies to make noncriminals and minor offenders–the people most likely to benefit from the reform now stalled in Congress–the lowest priority for deportation,” the Times writes. “Mr. Obama turned the dragnet on, and can turn it off. In marches and vigils across the country, protesters have made one plea on deportations to Mr. Obama: ‘Not one more.’ He should heed it.”

The Times comes out against programs like Secure Communities, “which does immigration checks on everyone arrested by local and state law enforcement” and Operation Streamline, “in which border crossers in the Southwest are prosecuted en masse.”

California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) recently signed a law making California a sanctuary state for most illegal immigrants, prohibiting law enforcement agents “from transferring illegal immigrants they arrest to federal law enforcement for potential deportation if those illegal immigrants have not committed serious crimes.”