Wyoming’s lone U.S. House representative on Thursday announced her introduction of an act to keep student visas from being issued in “sanctuary” or anti-immigration-enforcement jurisdictions.
The bill would amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to prohibit student visas for colleges and other academic institutions in “sanctuary jurisdictions.”
Republican Rep. Harriet Hageman said in a Thursday statement that this matters because, “Sanctuary cities are actively working against immigration laws put in place by representatives of the American people.”
She’s referring to areas like Colorado, which has state laws prohibiting local law enforcement from cooperating with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents.
Hageman cited a Center for Immigration Studies statistic estimating 10,000 serious foreign criminals who were deportable and among whom there were felons have been “released back on the streets; many of them to the safety of sanctuary cities.”
Pulling student visas, said Hageman, is “an accountability measure” to pressure leaders in those areas to rid their cities “of lawbreakers.”
Problem, Says Immigration Attorney
Though one Wyoming sheriff wasn’t working smoothly with ICE last year, it’s difficult to tell if Wyoming has any sanctuary jurisdictions.
That’s because that’s not an official legal term.
“As I recall and understand (the term), it only came into lexicon during the last Trump administration,” Laramie-based immigration attorney Travis Helm told Cowboy State Daily on Thursday. “Kind of like ‘woke.’”
If it becomes law, Hageman’s bill would put the term into federal law.
The new definition would include any state or local government with laws, ordinances, regulations, resolutions, policies or other practices that obstruct immigration enforcement or shield criminals from ICE.
That can include anything that keeps agencies from complying with ICE detainers, imposes unreasonable conditions on ICE detainer requirements, denies ICE access to incarcerated aliens or otherwise impedes communication or exchanges between local officials and federal immigration officers.
That’s broad, said Helm.
“It’s whatever they want,” he said.
Helm also called the definition “ridiculous” and “authoritarian.”
None In Wyoming
The University of Wyoming declined Thursday to comment on Hageman’s bill.
UW sits within the town of Laramie, which has not drawn the scrutiny Teton County has on immigration practices.
Neither Teton's County seat of Jackson nor Laramie is listed as a sanctuary city on a Center for Immigration Studies map.
UW’s town is not a sanctuary city, officially.
“Not until they say it is,” countered Helm.
ICE declined to comment on the pending legislation.
Hageman in a Thursday email to Cowboy State Daily said politicians and community leaders in sanctuary cities and states are "aggressively opposing President (Donald) Trump and his promise to secure our border, reinstate the rule of law by enforcing our immigration laws, and make America safe again."
Hageman's bill is in line with other definitions of sanctuary jurisdiction now contemplated in Congress.
"My legislation," she continued, "is designed to ensure that there are real consequences to those who are pursuing an anti-American strategy, and who seek to elevate the interests of foreign nationals above our own citizens.”
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
