Because the basic premise of Sanctuary Cities is ILLEGAL and the violates Federal Law. Yes, the cities should welcome Illegal Aliens or look like HYPOCRITES, and if they don't they should give up the Sanctuary City label, and cooperate with the Feds under existing law.
Well, it’s not illegal. I think we should start with that, and move on from there. What are the Sanctuary Cities doing? Well first they are refusing to honor what are called Retainers. These are requests from CBP to hold suspected illegals in jail until they can be picked up by CBP. It is not illegal to ignore a request. A Retainer has no force of law. It is essentially saying Hey Buddy, do me a favor here. The Sanctuary Cities are not breaking the law in ignoring those Retainers. If the CBP goes through the trouble for a Warrant, that is not a request from an agency, it is an order from the Court, which has force of law. The Local Police have no choice but to comply with the Warrant, failure to do so is at a minimum contempt of court, and could be aiding and abetting the Suspect.
So what else do the Sanctuary Cities do? They do not lease out space in the Jail to detain people for the CBP. There are not Federal Jails in every city. So transporting the individual to the closest Federal Jail may take quite a bit of time, and that time slows the productivity of the CBP agent. Yet, there is no law that says local jails must allow CBP to hold someone for a fee. It was a favor, like allowing your Neighbor to store his lawnmower in your garage. There is no law that says you must, and if you do, your an charge him a nominal fee.
Refusing to tell the CBP about your suspicions? There is no law that says you must share your suspicions with any Law Enforcement officer. You may not withhold facts, and the Sanctuary Cities get around this by telling their cops not to ask the immigration status of anyone. You can suspect it, but unless you ask the question, you do not know. Additionally enforcement of Immigration law is not a local police responsibility. As was confirmed during the Obama Administration, Immigration is a Federal Responsibility. If it is your Responsibility to do something, then expecting that I have the legal requirement to assist you is just silly.
So that covers the nonsense about how it is illegal to have a Sanctuary City.
Is it smart? I don’t think so. The arguments of the Local Police in those cities is at best stretching the point to the consistency of taffy.
I will agree with you that such policies are hypocritical in arguing against the placement of Illegals in those cities. Those same Democrats object to immediate deportation. Those same Democrats tend to argue that the Illegal Immigrants are just undocumented migrants. So I also can see no legal problem with, nor any moral problem with dumping the people into those cities.
But remember it isn’t illegal to refuse to help someone. There are very few situations in this world where you have the legal requirement to assist another. Cooperation may make a lot more sense, but it is not required by law, except in the issue of Warrants or other Court Orders.