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Salem closer to becoming a sanctuary city

NBC Boston reports the Salem City Council voted early this morning to designate the city. One more vote and it becomes official.

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I'm not incredibly passionate about this issue. I could be swayed one way or the other.

But if *significant* federal money is withheld from these cities, they have to make up for it somehow. And THAT'S my biggest issue. Will my property taxes go up? Will some other tax go up? Again, they have to make up for it somehow. So that's where you lose me. I should NOT have to pay money to support this cause. You're in this country illegally? Fine. I'm not ICE and I'm not out to get you. But I'm sure as hell not going to subsidize you.

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It's not clear they can withhold any money. The towns aren't breaking the law as it's written. They aren't hiding immigrants, they just aren't holding them for ICE to pickup after they would otherwise been released. The local police have no legal obligation to verify immigration status.

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The Feds cannot commandeer or compel state and local communities to do their work for them.

There are several supreme court rulings in this matter - the Fed got away with it when they were talking about 5% of federal highway funds because that was ruled to be an incentive because 5% is a minor amount of money withheld.(1987 decision involving North Dakota and drinking age). This is not a minor amount of money withheld. The Fed was slapped back on this in a gun control case in 1997 or so and it was right wing poster boy Scalia doing quite a bit of that slapping.

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Less quantifiable, but still real, is what ICE's enforcement is costing your city. Just because it's easy to put a (probably illusory) number on one side of the argument, don't kid yourself that this is the cheap way out.

(not to mention that the action of withholding funds from sanctuary cities seems to be unconstitutional, and also impractical. There are a LOT of sanctuary cities/counties/states)

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For Salem, it's currently $11 million. If they lose it, then the city must then live within its means and not think of the city's taxpayers as an ATM machine.

This is really being rammed down everyone's throats.

80 people (residents who spoke had to be identified, as it is a public record) spoke out in favor of this, less than 10 spoke out against it. 80 people (0.002% of the population) DO NOT speak for the entire population of Salem which exceeds 40,000. Neither do the 10 who spoke out against it. The City Council vote was 7 in favor, 4 opposed.

One ward councilor who voted against it, brought up a motion to bring this in front of the voters in November, that was also voted down.

This has really polarized Salem to the point where people are now coming out of the woodwork, pulling petitions to run for office in November. Another ward councilor (who voted for this, BTW) is not running for re-election and already, six have taken out papers to run for that seat. The councilor who originally introduced this, David Eppley, is giving up his ward councilor seat to run for one of the four At-Large seats. One person has already taken out papers to run against the incumbent mayor.

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For Salem, it's currently $11 million.

Where does that number come from,?

Since we're being specific and all that...

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The only reference to $11 million in that article is an oral statement by an individual at the meeting (who gave no citation for it either) and you linked to statistics of the cost of immigration that were imagined by FAIR. Making numbers up is fun.

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then the city must then live within its means and not think of the city's taxpayers as an ATM machine

Nice talking points you have there. Explain how, exactly a city can "treat taxpayers like an ATM"? Municipalities in Massachusetts can't just raise taxes indefinitely on a whim. It doesn't work that way. Cities also ALWAYS have to live within their budgets by law.

You must have just moved here from Talking Points City, Ohio or something if you are so very unfamiliar with the way that Prop 2 1/2 works, representative government works, etc.

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Swirly, I've always found your posts, as well as cybah's, to be very insightful. I hope you both continue to express opinions here. If there was a way to post a thumbs-up emoji, I would. So... [thumbs-up] to you both!

I am aware of how Prop 2 1/2 works, been here all my life.

The point I was trying to make, which admittedly, may not have been 100% clear, was that if the city loses the $11 million in funding if the ordinance becomes law (knowing there are questions as to the legality of the funding being taken away) and I hope it doesn't lose the funding, the city is going to want to fill that budget gap/hole somehow and one way of doing that is obviously, through the property tax, in other words, going to the taxpayers (referencing the ATM machine) for the money. Property taxes (probably most taxes...) always find a way of going up. If property values drop, I've seen the tax rate increased to make up for the shortfall. If property values increase, then the tax rate may drop, so as long as the taxes overall aren't raised by more than 2 1/2%.

When I referenced the ATM machine, municipalities can use additional sources of revenue to make up for any shortfalls, in addition to the city's taxpayers. The city taking advantage of the extra 0.75% sales/meal tax on meals at restaurants, is an excellent example. There are great restaurants in town and of course, Haunted Happenings in October and Halloween is both the biggest month and day.

The link to the talking points article, was attached to one of the other articles I read on the subject. I provided it for informational purposes only.

I certainly understand the original commentator's reasoning for not wanting to pay for it.

Please accept my apologies if my previous post wasn't clear.

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ICE isn't going around Order 66ing illegal immigrants. The fact is (and statistics prove this), 92% of people deported last year were do so because of a serious offense committed (I.E. drugs,assault). As much as I don't agree with the Head Orange in Charge, his speeches on immigrants defines his stance as wanting to deport those who want to terrorize neighborhoods such as East Boston and Lynn. But hell, let's put up some pitchforks and march.

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This year, things appear to be different -- down from 92% to 75% according to Benito Dorito's own quoted statistics (for what that's worth) in just a few short weeks.

his speeches on immigrants defines his stance as wanting to deport those who want to terrorize neighborhoods such as East Boston and Lynn.

He also says that no one is less racist, less sexist or less antisemitic than he is. Did you believe that too?

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Since the current administration couldn't change policy until 01/20/2017, how do last year's numbers in any way reflect the practices or impacts of current policy?

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I don't understand what the fuss is all about but after listening to high on his horse sheriff of Bristol County and the looney leftist state rep from Brockton I see there will be no compromise on this issue. The problem with sanctuary cities such as Amherst, Somerville, Cambridge and Boston is that no undocumented workers and their families can possibly afford to live in their rich gentrified gated neighborhoods and the poorer cities like Brockton and Lawrence need federal funds to provide services to their citizens.

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