Tucson and the city of South Tucson are not “sanctuary cities,” officials said Wednesday, the day President Trump signed an executive order to withhold federal grants to communities that protect illegal immigrants.
Officially, Tucson became an “immigrant-welcoming city” in 2012 and reaffirmed that title in December, with Mayor Jonathan Rothschild and Councilwoman Regina Romero vowing to protect all of its citizens.
“Tucson remains an immigrant-welcoming community with resources available to help visitors, permanent residents and those seeking to become naturalized U.S. citizens, and none of that is going to change,” said Rothschild last month.
A “sanctuary city” is a self designation that generally refers to jurisdictions that don’t cooperate with federal immigration officials.
City officials stress the city has never declared itself as a sanctuary city, nor does it have any policies or regulations that prohibit or limit the enforcement of federal immigration laws.
The square-mile city of South Tucson is also not a sanctuary city, according to Mayor Idelfonso Green. However, several groups that track these designations online list the tiny jurisdiction as such.
South Tucson Police Chief Michael Ford says there might be some confusion from when the American Civil Liberties Union threatened to sue South Tucson in 2013, when officers detained an immigrant-rights activist with the Southside Worker Center.
The South Tucson City Council agreed to a new immigration policy in a settlement with the ACLU after months of negotiations. Ford said no practices, including the immigration policy, conflict with federal immigration laws.
