Michigan Should Be A 'Sanctuary State:' Abdul El-Sayed

LANSING, MI — While California may beat Michigan to the punch, Abdul El-Sayed still wants it to become a “sanctuary state” for undocumented immigrants. El-Sayed, a Detroit Democrat running for governor, released his policy platform on the subject Monday, calling it a progressive approach to a very serious problem facing the United States. He said Michigan should work to protect families from President Donald Trump’s immigration policies.

“It’s important to me we are not breaking up families wantonly,” El-Sayed told the Detroit News, “and also not breaking up full-on economies and industries in our state because of the whims of one guy who realized he could come to power by vilifying people who are a little bit browner than everyone else.”

El-Sayed, 32, resigned as the head of the city of Detroit’s health department in February to run for Michigan’s top executive. He took over the department in 2015, rebuilding a government institution that had been privatized during the city’s bankruptcy, the Detroit News reported. El-Sayed is a Rhodes Scholar.

El-Sayed thinks it’s important for Michigan to push back against Trump’s call to increase enforcement and deportations. Absent national reform that provides a viable path to citizenship for immigrants who may have entered the country illegally, El-Sayed told the Detroit News that Michigan should acknowledge the role immigrants play in the state’s economy, such as farming.

For-El-Sayed, that means Michigan should be a sanctuary state. “The state is not going to invest its own dollars, its own police force, its own corrections money equipping and empowering what seems to be questionable and often dispassionate enforcement of laws and policies that are unclear at best,” he told the Detroit News.

California legislators are currently considering a bill that would make it the first “sanctuary state” in the nation, the newspaper reported. The proposal would generally prohibit state and local law enforcement agencies from assisting federal immigration enforcement officers or asking residents about their legal status. Republicans, however, have signaled that that scenario won’t play out in the Michigan.

The introduced this year in the Michigan House would bar local governments from enacting or enforcing policies to prohibit cooperation with federal immigration authorities. Violating cities would lose state revenue sharing payments.

Trump also signed an executive order in January that threatens to cut off federal grant funding for sanctuary cities, declaring that many immigrants who entered the country illegally or overstayed their visas “present a significant threat to national security and public safety,” the Detroit News reported.

El-Sayed is one of three candidates seeking the Democratic party’s nomination for governor. Other candidates include state Sen. Gretchen Whitmer and former Xerox executive Bill Cobbs. On the Republican side, Attorney General Bill Schuette and Lt. Gov. Brian Calley are considering campaigns to replace term-limited Gov. Rick Snyder, and Saginaw-area obstetrician Jim Hines is already running, the Detroit News reported.

Photo by John Moore/Staff/Getty Images News/Getty Images. Photo of Abdul El-Sayed courtesy of the city of Detroit