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Comment by sean_patel | Hacker News Reader

Despite being an independent left leaning liberal, I welcome this proposal, if they can actually implement it.

I see wide-spread exploitation of the "Sanctuary City" Law in San Francisco, especially in the Restaurants, Construction site and Janitorial jobs.

The Sanctuary Law, for those that don't know, forbids the Feds from asking employers about the immigration status of the employees / workers. This has caused 100s and 1000s of (mostly mexican and hispanic) undocumented immigrants to arrive and live in Sanctuary Cities (like San Francisco, LA, etc) and strain the local public services, while simultaneously being exploited by their employers.

Most get paid less than minimum wage (some even as low as 8$ / hour instead of the $13.75 min wage in SF), women get abused, sexually harassed etc (in restaurant jobs).

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The more important aspect is preventing local police from having to act as immigration agents. That has a very real effect on crime: illegal immigrants don't have to be afraid of talking to police. I think we're safer when everyone feels free to report crimes and act as witnesses.

I agree with your message about safety, but it is important to keep in mind that illegal immigrants are inherently breaking the law. We should not encourage keeping them safe from deportation.

It is not a criminal offense to be in the country unlawfully. It gets kind of complicated, but here is a useful resource: http://blogs.findlaw.com/blotter/2014/07/is-illegal-immigrat...

Thank you, that is an enlightening article. It does mention, however, that while unlawful presence is not a crime, you can still be deported for it.

There's no law that you have to be a citizen in this country.

As a (legal) immigrant, I have to remind you that there is legal immigration, and illegal, let's not confuse them.

Sure--but perhaps it's not the best investment in security to deal with the people who already got past the illegal part.

Sure, they are violating the law, but I and many others would say that it's an unjust and harmful law.

Laws exist to serve people, not the other way around.

Yep. The law should be changed so legal immigration is much easier.

Regardless of whether it is just or not, it is still the law. If it is harmful, then it should be changed.

Illegal immigrants often do not enjoy all the rights and privileges citizens of the United States do. Many underpaid, overworked, and denied benefits.

If we need more people in this country, we need to make it easy for them to come, and we need to treat them right when they arrive.

I think taking advantage of social services without paying for them is pretty clearly unjust

And I don't think open borders are a good idea for america in its current state.

This is a total straw man. Illegal immigrants pay their taxes. The IRS doesn't care about their immigration status, but they do care about getting paid.

There's a long debate to be had about immigration in general. I'd contend, though, that it's in the public interest to look past things like immigration status in certain situations. For example, suppose we're vaccinating against an epidemic. In that case, you definitely don't want anyone to be afraid to come out and get their shot for any reason.

SF doesn't keep illegal immigrants safe from deportation. It says "in these circumstances, we think it's more important that you cooperate with the city than it is for us to try to deport you, so we're going to call a temporary truce".

While your comment sounds like it makes sense at face value, I find it naive and simplistic. I think the logical outcome of a policy like that is that you end up worse off.

We all unwittingly break many laws day. Living in the US is inherently illegal, even if you happen to be a citizen. My point is that there isn't some binary division between people that break the law and those that don't.

If businesses need to be immigration police, they'll just hire illegal immigrants under the table (moreso), and be more exploitive about it.

If people are afraid to talk to the police, they won't. This breeds gangs & protection rackets, which presumably you don't want, because they increase crime.

As these problems will become worse and worse, the more we will try to crack down on illegal immigration, intensifying said problems. The tragic irony is that the solution is the cause of the problem and it is part of a nasty feedback loop.

So there's NO FUNDAMENTAL DIFFERENCE between a serial killer and someone who jaywalked once in their lifetime?

> Living in the US is inherently illegal, even if you happen to be a citizen

I am guessing you are implying that the White Europeans "stole" America from the Native Americans. By that notion, you can keep going a few 100 years back in history and you'll eventually end up with "Living in the ___ is inherently illegal, even if you happen to be a citizen" for every place in this earth except that place in Africa where the human is supposed to have evolved and migrated.

I don't think that is what he's saying, he's just referring to the number of laws you routinely break potentially without even realizing.

Yes, that's correct

Sorry, you guessed wrong

I'm pretty sure San Francisco has no power over Federal agents, and I can't find any evidence that the law attempts to "forbid the Feds from asking employers about the immigration status of the employees". Best I can tell it only forbids _City_ employees from actively assisting or spending city money to assist federal immigration agents. This is entirely reasonable. As for evasion of federal law by employERs, the employers should be the target of enforcement, not the employees.

And you find that cutting federal funding entirely is a reasonable, proportional response?

Yes. Bigly.

That is how the federal government pressures states to do _everything_

I still can't tell _why_ you support the proposal. What are the actual problems with sanctuary laws?

1) Sanctuary Laws allow undocumented immigrants to live and work in such cities... for CASH. Since the employer - usually labor intensive like at Restaurants, construction sites, janitorial services etc - pays cash, the employer can pay anything, even as low as 5 to 8$ an hour. So the undocumented immigrant is getting exploited.

2) Since they are undocumented, these workers also routinely get harassed, abused by employers. I've seen 1st hand female restaurant workers touched, rubbed, groped etc in the kitchen. They can't go anywhere to complaint cos they'll get identified and deported

3) Lastly, and this is 1 of my major concerns, whenever these undocumented immigrants needs medical assistance, the city's tax payers foot the bill for the ambulance, hospitalization etc since these people (don't mean it to sound like that) also don't have health insurance. 1 Restaurant owner in the edge of the Tenderloin district told me that this population accounted for over 70K of tax payers money in 2015 (not sure how he found that out).

Lastly -- and this is not something I subscribe to, but Trump made it a big deal as it is sensational and brings in the "angry white man" voters to his fold -- undocumented immigrants have committed violent crimes in San Francisco and in 1 such case, a lady was shot point blank range while she was strolling in Fisherman's Wharf (totally unrelated to deranged shooter) and Trump made it a case of "See we allow undocumented immigrants and they come and murder us."

Thanks for the detailed response!

I'm a little torn on #1. I definitely don't think anybody should be allowed to be paid less than minimum wage. But on the other hand, if these people are choosing to come to the United States to work these jobs because it's better than what they could get in their home country, it's hard for me to say they shouldn't be able to do it.

Isn't #2 the whole point of sanctuary cities? In theory, the undocumented immigrants in these cities should have no fear of going to police and other authorities. Whereas in other cities the police might actually be obligated to inform immigration officials.

#3 is interesting. Definitely undocumented immigrants make use of government resources, but they also help the economy by providing cheap labor. As far as I know, there isn't a strong consensus on whether the overall impact is positive or negative. For example, here's a brief article that explores both sides a bit: http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-thorny-economics-of-illegal-...

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