Differences over immigration policy have helped land Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto in a stinging debate with two well-known conservatives, including a Democrat who is a supporter of President-elect Donald Trump.
“Tyrants have been threatening good people for centuries. But places like Pittsburgh are committed to fighting for the values of the Constitution,” Mr. Peduto, a Democrat, wrote in The Hill newspaper Tuesday. He argued that “working with immigrant communities to build trust with local law enforcement — rather than seeding fear and mistrust, as some would like — helps fight crime.”
His commentary countered recent Hill pieces from Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke, the Democrat who was a Trump surrogate during the presidential race, and Pennsylvania GOP chairman Rob Gleason. Both fumed over a news report suggesting that Pittsburgh City Council may formalize a “sanctuary city” designation.
Definitions vary for the term, which often refers to municipalities that don’t cooperate in full with federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement, according to the Marshall Project nonprofit in New York. Pittsburgh policy keeps city police from detaining people based solely on claims about immigration status, but the city has not adopted an official “sanctuary” law.
“The lives of countless U.S. citizens have been devastated as a result of sanctuary cities policies, which forces local police to ignore the requests of federal authorities with regards to illegal immigration,” Mr. Gleason wrote in his Nov. 30 Hill column. He cited cases in Philadelphia and San Francisco, where an illegal immigrant last year fired a fatal shot after his release from jail over federal objections.
Both cities are known as sanctuaries.
Several Pittsburgh council members, including President Bruce Kraus, have said they knew of no council efforts to make the city an official sanctuary. PublicSource, a news nonprofit, reported Nov. 29 that members were “looking into formalizing such a policy.” The detail was attributed only to an unnamed source in city government.
Mayoral spokesman Tim McNulty called the story’s central theme inaccurate. PublicSource executive director Mila Sanina, a former editor at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, said her organization stands behind its reporting.
Asked whether he would be interested in a formal sanctuary designation, Mr. Kraus was non-committal.
“There are just too many pieces to that puzzle that I have not [considered] well enough to give you a researched and well-thought-out answer,” he said.
Pittsburgh policy calls for city police to cooperate with federal ICE officers to help detain people “formally determined to be subject to criminal investigations,” Mr. Peduto wrote. For city police to detain people “based merely on allegations regarding their immigration status,” he argued, would be unconstitutional and “divert precious resources.”
Adam Smeltz: 412-263-2625, asmeltz@post-gazette.com, @asmeltz.
First Published: December 14, 2016, 5:00 a.m.
