Peter King was one of a handful of Republicans to vote against a measure in the House of Representatives designed to cut Federal funding for police in so-called “Sanctuary Cities.” The only Long Islander to support the anti-immigrant measure was Lee Zeldin from Eastern Suffolk. The proposal, called the “Donald Trump Bill” by capital insiders, appears to be a response to Trump’s current campaign against Mexican immigrants.
If the proposal becomes law it will penalize those police departments that have adopted modern policing approaches that encourage immigrants to cooperate with police. To lessen fears of the police, these departments limit their involvement in immigration enforcement. While Trump and others express outrage at this, until a little over a decade ago, police had little to do with immigration enforcement in most parts of the U.S. Trump, capitalized on a killing by an undocumented immigrant in San Francisco to justify his earlier wild statements.
