League City, Texas, voted 6-2 to ban within its borders the operation of any detention facility that processes the illegal immigrant children who are pouring across the border.
City Council members Heidi Thiess drafted the measure, citing “health and safety” reasons, The Houston Chronicle reported.
The measure requires that “all agencies of the City of League City [must] refuse requests or directives by federal agencies to permit or establish any facility for the proposes of processing, housing, or detaining any illegal aliens, designated ’refugee’ or otherwise,” Raw Story reported.
The city doesn’t have information that confirms feds are trying to relocate illegal immigrant children in the community, but Ms. Thiess said the council was taking preemptive action.
“Localities are learning about the establishment of detention centers after the fact,” she said in interviews with local media. “It does have an impact on our local resources — our emergency services, our public safety, all of our resources, to include education.”
Still, the measure may not keep the feds or the illegals at bay.
KHOU News legal expert Gerald Treece said the “federal government’s laws trumpet everything else. City councils get frustrated with immigration problems. But it’s simply not the city’s legal right to tell the federal government what they can and cannot do in the area of immigration. Even states don’t have the authority to do this, much less a city.”
• Cheryl K. Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com.
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