The City of Eugene may declare itself a sanctuary city as soon as next month. A task force has begun meeting to draft an ordinance and the City Council is expected to consider it in February. In the wake of President Trump’s executive order last week threatening to withhold federal funds from sanctuary jurisdictions, KLCC’s Rachael McDonald spoke with Eugene Mayor Lucy Vinis.
Vinis: Well, in our case, what we’re talking about is kind of codifying what we already do as a city. So we’re making this important distinction which is immigration policy creation and the enforcement of immigration policy is a federal mandate. The federal government does that. It is not a mandate in our city charter for us to enforce immigration policy. And so, we are really just putting that language in place which is that city departments, police and other departments continue to do the work that they do but they are not expected or obligated to do the work of federal agencies. We are wanting to protect our own departments, in particular our police department, so they have the funding to do the work that they are there to do, which is to protect us from criminal behavior and non-criminal inquiries about people’s documentation is not a role of the city police, nor is it a role of other city departments.
McDonald: Meanwhile, President Donald Trump, in one of his executive orders last week, said that sanctuary cities will not receive federal funds. How does that shape the discussion going forward?
Vinis: It certainly, in our view, we’re looking at it. And I know that city staff is in contact with various people who have some expertize on this. It’s not clear because there’s no single definition of what a sanctuary city is. Our sense is that constitutionally, we are not constitutionally empowered to do the work of federal agencies. So there’s a constitutional question about what can the federal government require us to do given that separation of state, city and feds and county. So, it’s not exactly clear what the impact will be. We’re certainly watching it because we want to know but there’s no obvious, we’ll definitely lose funding for x, that’s not clear at all.
McDonald: In hearing the many executive orders that have been coming from the White House, is there a sense of Eugene standing in defiance to some of this?
Vinis: Well, there are people who oppose the sanctuary city effort. They do see that as defiance. It really is not defiance. It is a clarification of roles. There are roles that federal government takes on and immigration policy is one of those. There are roles that the city government takes on and immigration policy is not one of our roles. It’s not what we do. It’s not what we raise tax dollars to undertake.
McDonald: Well, as a new mayor in office at the City of Eugene and looking at this new president, what has your experience been like this last week or so?
Vinis: Well, I’ll say that I have definitely stepped into office in a very charged atmosphere and I will just say that I pledged as mayor that I would make an effort to canvas in each of the 8 wards every 4 months. So, my first canvasing was in ward 8 this past weekend. I went with Councilor Chris Pryor and we probably knocked on 25 doors and everybody who answered and spoke to us, which was maybe 20 of the 25, talked to us about sanctuary city status. They didn’t ask us about any other city policies or endeavors. So that says a lot.
McDonald: Was there a sense of people’s support of that?
Vinis: Yeah. In that particular neighborhood, I would say all but one of the people who talked to us was positive about the sanctuary city idea.
Eugene Mayor Lucy Vinis. The sanctuary city task force meets this Friday. The City Council is expected to consider a proposed sanctuary city ordinance and hold a public hearing in February.
