Do You Live In This Minnesota ‘Sanctuary County’?
There's only one of them in Minnesota. Do you know what it is?
Let's start with the basics. To be completely honest, I'd never even heard of a "sanctuary county," city or state until I moved to Minnesota. It's no secret that we've welcomed many immigrants to our state, and this might be a clue as to why.
Simply put, a "sanctuary county" is, according to the Center For Immigration Studies, a group of, "[...] cities, counties, and states that have laws, ordinances, regulations, resolutions, policies, or other practices that obstruct immigration enforcement and shield criminals from ICE — either by refusing to or prohibiting agencies from complying with ICE detainers, imposing unreasonable conditions on detainer acceptance, denying ICE access to interview incarcerated aliens, or otherwise impeding communication or information exchanges between their personnel and federal immigration officers."
According to this report, Hennepin County is the only county (or area, for that matter) in Minnesota that considers itself a "sanctuary county" for immigrants.
Specifically, this listing references the Sheriff Stanek Statement on U.S. Immigration and Customs Detainers (which will not honor ICE detainer absent judicial authority) as an example of Hennepin County's actions. This was enacted in July 2014.
Now, I've gotta ask: Should more of Minnesota be immigrant friendly? Or, should we leave that up to Minneapolis? Lord knows, Rochester is growing too.