Jim McDevitt: Sanctuary city policies are a threat to public safety

Following the horrific attacks on the United States on 9/11/2001, the president and Congress created what was known as the “9/11 Commission.” This was a bipartisan, 10-member commission whose task was to determine why the nation was unprepared, how the attacks happened and how this nation could avoid such a tragedy again.

Following extensive study, research, interviews and a tremendous amount of work, the commission published its final report, titled “The 9/11 Commission Report.” This well-documented 567-page report gives a complete analysis of how and why the attacks occurred, what failures allowed them to catch the nation completely unprepared and, most importantly, what we as a nation need to do to avoid such a disaster in the future.

For the purposes of this guest opinion, two recommendations of the commission are worth highlighting. First, the commission noted:

“It is elemental to border security to know who is coming into the country. Today more than 9 million people are in the United States outside the legal immigration system. We must be able to monitor and respond to entrances between our ports of entry …

“There is a growing role for state and local law enforcement agencies. They need more training and [more] work with federal agencies so they can cooperate more effectively with those federal authorities in identifying terrorist suspects.” (Report, 12.4, p. 390)

Further to this recommendation, the commission noted the need for secure identification for everyone, and stated that fraud in identification documents is no longer merely a problem of theft, but more importantly, it is a potential threat to national security. As well, the commission advocated the need for good, certain and effective immigration services.

Second, with respect to information sharing, the commission observed that the biggest impediment to “all source analysis” or “connecting the dots” was the human or systemic resistance to share information. In other words, we had all the information to predict the 9/11 attacks located in various repositories, but most agencies held on to a “need to know” philosophy, as opposed to a “need to share” attitude. In that regard, the commission recommended:

“Information procedures should provide incentives for sharing, to restore a better balance between security and shared knowledge.” (Report, 13.3, p.417)

Unfortunately, current policy and directives originating from Olympia, as well as from major cities such as Seattle and Spokane, undercut not only cooperation among local, state and federal law enforcement officials, but also impair information sharing among these law enforcement partners.

I have discussed these issues with a number of federal, state and local law enforcement officials. With few exceptions, the consensus is that current sanctuary state/city policies and restrictions on cooperating and sharing local information with Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Homeland Security Investigations, both agencies of the Department of Homeland Security, impair effective law enforcement and present a danger to public safety. It should be remembered that ICE and HSI deal with more than undocumented alien removal, but also focus on sex trafficking, child exploitation, drug trafficking, fraudulent identification issues and many other serious crimes. Current barriers to cooperation and information sharing impede not only immigration cases, but other cases such as human trafficking and drug smuggling.

Based upon my own experience as United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Washington, serving under both Presidents Bush and Obama, as well as my short tour as Law Enforcement Director for the city of Spokane and current involvement in various law enforcement matters, it certainly appears to me that we have disregarded two of the most important recommendations of the 9/11 Commission. We no longer freely share certain important law enforcement information among federal, state and local agencies as specifically recommended by the commission and we lack full cooperation on matters important to border security, also recommended by the commission. In short, we have willfully ignored the important lessons learned on 9/11.

Yes, we do need an effective, predictable and timely system of immigration; but we also absolutely need to know who is entering and remaining in our country. We also need to adopt and implement full cooperation between and among all law enforcement agencies, including full and effective information sharing.

Jim McDevitt was the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Washington from 2001 to 2010.