By CHRIS POWELL
What are “sanctuary states” and “sanctuary cities”?
Connecticut Attorney General William Tong and Governor Lamont last week claimed not to know and to have no idea why the Trump administration has labeled Connecticut a “sanctuary state.”
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“There is nothing in our laws or statutes that says Connecticut is a ‘sanctuary’ state,” Tong says. “We are not.”
The governor says: “I am focused on making sure people feel safe in our schools, churches, and elsewhere. Nothing about this makes Connecticut a ‘sanctuary’ in any legal or practical sense.”
But the U.S. Homeland Security Department provides a clear definition: “Sanctuary” jurisdictions have “policies, laws, or regulations that impede enforcement of federal immigration laws.”
That’s Connecticut.
The state’s “Trust Act” explicitly forbids police agencies from cooperating with federal immigration authorities in most circumstances. It doesn’t matter that the “Trust Act” doesn’t use the term “sanctuary.” “Sanctuary” means “a place of refuge or protection,” which is what the “Trust Act” makes Connecticut for illegal immigrants.
The attorney general and the governor play their word game in the hope of not provoking the Trump administration, which, unlike its predecessor, is enforcing immigration law. But the game not only fails to avoid provocation; it also falsely suggests that the attorney general and the governor don’t know they are attempting nullification of federal law just as the segregationist states of the last century tried to do.
New Haven city government is just as nullificationist but it wasn’t playing the word game last week. An announcement from Mayor Justin Elicker was headlined: “Mayor Elicker applauds growing nationwide coalition of local governments challenging the Trump administration’s attempt to defund welcoming and sanctuary jurisdictions. …”
The announcement added: “Sanctuary policies make us all safer and ensure communities are welcoming places for everyone.” That is, “welcoming” even for people in the country illegally and even for people of bad intent.
The attorney general and the governor note that no federal law requires police in Connecticut to cooperate with federal immigration authorities. But this refusal to cooperate very much impedes immigration law enforcement — the point of the “Trust Act.”
State government and New Haven city government impede immigration law enforcement far more directly by issuing identification documents to illegal immigrants precisely to facilitate their violation of immigration law — state government by issuing special driver’s licenses to them, New Haven by giving them city identification cards. These identification documents make the state and the city direct and knowing accomplices in illegal immigration.
Pretending that the state is not providing “sanctuary” when it obviously is doing just that, the governor and attorney general take their constituents for fools. New Haven’s policy is the same and just as bad as the state’s but, unlike the attorney general and the governor, at least Mayor Elicker is honest about it.
FORBID ANONYMOUS LAWSUITS: In recent years Connecticut’s Judicial Department has transformed from the least transparent to the most transparent of the state’s three branches of government. But a civil lawsuit from Kent could push the department back to the old ways.
Former students and employees of the Kent School are suing the school in Superior Court for damages arising from what is said to have been a former school employee’s copying intimate photographs and other information about them from the school’s computer system. Three plaintiffs have asked the court to let them sue anonymously, using pseudonyms, to avoid embarrassment.
Judge Daniel Klau has denied the request, holding that the public interest in open courts outweighs the privacy interests of the plaintiffs, but the pseudonym issue has been taken to the Appellate Court.
Merely identifying the plaintiffs as is ordinarily done in lawsuits won’t make any intimate photos public, but concealing their identities will set an awful precedent. After all, many plaintiffs might prefer to sue anonymously. In effect that would close the courts to the public, since anonymity precludes accountability.
Connecticut’s Constitution commands, “All courts shall be open.” If it has forgotten, the Appellate Court should look it up.
Chris Powell has written about Connecticut government and politics for many years. (CPowell@cox.net)
Chris Powell column 