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In the heated battle over sanctuary cities, Gov. Greg Abbott has gone too far.
Cutting off $1.5 million in funds that support family violence education and a veterans court in Travis County only hurts the Texans he represents and serves. It does nothing to close the debate over sanctuary cities. It will harm people whose lives are separate from the sanctuary cities issue, and it will likely only further divides Texans.
It’s a cruel and shortsighted maneuver.
Similarly, his recent rhetoric about removing elected officials from office who support sanctuary cities policies is beyond the pale. Abbott would be wise to defer to democracy. Voters choose elected officials, not governors or state lawmakers.
Travis County voters chose Sheriff Sally Hernandez, who ran on a sanctuary cities platform. She followed through on that pledge. Her department will not hold some undocumented immigrants for federal immigration officials.
Hernandez has said her agency will continue to hold people facing serious charges, such as capital murder, first-degree murder, aggravated sexual assault and human smuggling. Her office will comply with judicial warrants and due process. But she has questioned the value of using county jails as default holding cells for immigration officials. Such holds lead to deportations over relatively minor crimes and serve as obstacles to community policing.
In a recent interview on Fox News, Abbott vowed to remove Hernandez from office and any other official supporting sanctuary policies. Abbott and others have said such policies violate the oath of office and put dangerous criminals back into our communities.
Abbott’s comments and actions come at time when President Donald J. Trump has pledged to cut off funds to sanctuary cities. So Abbott’s animosity appears redundant. This is federal policy. Why not focus on more substantive state issues?
Views on sanctuary cities are strong and varied. Not surprising since it encapsulates immigration policy, community policing, security and racial profiling. It’s complicated, combustible and worthy of debate, but that can be done without trampling over democracy or undercutting services that benefit Texans.
That is where Abbott has failed. Utterly.
Just as Texas voters elected Abbott, Travis County voters elected Hernandez. She is their sheriff. If Travis County voters disagree with her policy, they can give her the boot next election.
Or citizens groups can sue over her sanctuary policy (a tactic Abbott, our former attorney general, knows quite well). That’s how our system works. But cutting off funds and ousting elected officials is a ruinous approach.
Be better than this, governor.
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