[B]URLINGTON — Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger says the Queen City would welcome asylum-seeking immigrants if the Trump administration moves forward with its idea to relocate them to so-called “sanctuary cities.”
President Donald Trump announced on Twitter Friday that his administration was “strongly looking at” placing “illegal immigrants in Sanctuary Cities only” — the tweet came after the Washington Post reported Thursday the administration was considering the policy toward immigrants seeking asylum at the southern border.
As a sanctuary city, municipal officials and police do not ask residents about immigration status. This had been the city’s practice before the city council voted to formalize its policies in 2016.
Trump said on Twitter Friday that Democrats are “unwilling to change our very dangerous immigration laws.”
“The Radical Left always seems to have an Open Borders, Open Arms policy – so this should make them very happy!” Trump said on Twitter.
Weinberger, a Democrat, said Monday that Burlington does not agree with Trump’s attempts to “demonize” immigrants.
“I want to make it clear that here in Burlington, Vermont, we do not buy into, we do not support his very dark vision of immigrants who are attempting to come to this country and seek asylum, fleeing very difficult situations in their home country,” Weinberger said.
The Burlington area has welcomed more than 5,000 New Americans in the last 30 years, Weinberger said. He said he was concerned with the Trump administration’s conversations about changing the country’s asylum policies.
The Trump administration has discussed a number of controversial immigration policies, but not moved forward with all of them. For example, Trump briefly floated “immediately closing” the southern border, a policy which never came to fruition.
The administration did implement a much-criticized family separation policy, which was later walked back. All three members of Vermont’s congressional delegation — Sens. Patrick Leahy and Bernie Sanders and Rep. Peter Welch — have spoken out against the Trump administration’s immigration policies.
Weinberger said with the Trump administration’s history, it was unclear if the administration’s discussions of placing asylum seekers in sanctuary cities would actually happen.
“It’s challenging to know exactly what they are contemplating and what they’re considering, but we are taking some steps, preliminary steps, to be as prepared as we can until more details are known about what they are planning,” he said.
Weinberger said he had met with his leadership team Monday morning, and they talked about the issue at length. He said the city has reached out to state and federal resources to make sure the municipality is in the loop, is in touch with community stakeholders who work with New American communities and is paying close attention to developments from Washington.
“Given the Trump administration’s long and growing track record of flailing around on these immigration issues and stirring up a lot of activity and then find themselves being unable to move forward the way they want to … we don’t want to overreact and put massive, large amounts of resources into something that may never materialize,” he said.
But Weinberger said he was taking the possibility seriously, especially considering recent turnover at the Department of Homeland Security and the appearance of administration officials on Sunday news shows who did not back away from the policy.
“What I hope Burlingtonians know is we’re playing close attention, we’re not going to panic because we don’t think what’s being talked about here should be a panic-inducing threat,” Weinberger said.
The Trump administration has targeted Burlington as part of its crackdown on sanctuary cities before. In January 2018, the Justice Department threatened to subpoena Burlington for documents relating to how the city guides its police to interact with federal authorities.
Burlington and other cities also pushed back against Trump administration attempts to deputize local police to aid in immigration enforcement and to block sanctuary cities from receiving federal grant funding.
Cities are approaching this possible Trump policy differently from those previous instances, Weinberger said.
“Here, the way we overcome the kind of venom the administration is putting out is to remind Americans that we are a country of immigrants, that we are a country that really has been built by wave after wave of people coming here for a variety of reasons,” Weinberger said.
Other mayors of sanctuary cities across the country have also expressed that they would welcome any undocumented immigrants that the Trump administration would send their way. The mayors of New York, Philadelphia, Seattle, Oakland and Los Angeles, among others, have expressed similar sentiments as Weinberger.
“So if this president wants to send immigrants and refugees to Seattle and other welcoming cities, let me be clear: We will do what we have always done, and we will be stronger for it,” Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan said. “And it will only strengthen our commitment to fighting for the dignity of every person. We will not allow any administration to use the power of America to destroy the promise of America.”