How “Sanctuary” Policies Significantly Hamper Local Law Enforcement

Institutional memories of a bygone era. 

John F. Kennedy’s Inaugural Address included a phrase that will be remembered for many generations, “Ask not what your country can do, ask what you can do for your country!”

Today I will twist that phrase a bit and apply it to the lunacy of so-called “Sanctuary” policies promulgated by all too many Democrat-controlled jurisdictions to obstruct immigration law enforcement:

“Ask not what the cops can do for immigration law enforcement, ask what immigration law enforcement can do for the cops!”

Dangerous “Sanctuary” policies adversely impact the federal government’s efforts to enforce immigration laws, however the adverse impact these same policies have on local law enforcement to protect their communities is never discussed.

Sanctuary policies are not new but have their origins in the 1980’s.  Initially those policies required that local and state police departments limited their interaction with federal immigration law enforcement and began with policies that prohibited local police from notifying agents of the INS (Immigration and Naturalization Service), the predecessor to ICE, when suspected illegal aliens were encountered by the police.  Over time the sanctuary policies became ever more stringent and included ignoring detainers lodged by immigration law enforcement and, in some jurisdictions, totally ending any sort of cooperation with immigration law enforcement.

I began my 30 year career with the former INS (Immigration and Naturalization Service) in October, 1971 when I entered on duty as an Immigration Inspector assigned to John F. Kennedy International Airport.  My job was to inspect aliens seeking to enter the United States to determine whether or not they should be admitted.  The fundamental law that provides guidance as to the admissibility of aliens into the United States is Title 8, United States Code, Section 1182 and provides a comprehensive list of categories of aliens who are deemed “inadmissible.” The intention of that commonsense law is to prevent the entry of aliens who pose a threat to public health, public safety, national security and the jobs and wages of American workers.

In 1973 I was given a one-year assignment to the INS unit that adjudicated petitions filed by U.S. citizens and lawful immigrant aliens for their nonimmigrant alien spouses to provide them with lawful immigrant status that the “Green Card” signifies.  We conducted interviews of the alien beneficiary and his/her petitioning spouse to determine if they were actually living together in a true marital relationship or if they had engaged in a criminal conspiracy to provide the alien applicant with lawful status even though they were not living together.

For decades the focus of the politicians has been the security, or lack thereof, of our physical borders, especially our southern border.  What was almost always overlooked was the way that aliens could commit immigration fraud to circumvent the border wall by obtaining a Green Card, which should be metaphorically thought of as a “Key” to America’s front door.  This meant that the adjudicators were “America’s locksmiths” who provided those keys to aliens!

Indeed, the 9/11 Commission, to which I provided testimony, determined that immigration fraud, in all of its various guises, was the key method of entry and embedding for terrorists.  This motivated me to write a report on this key vulnerability, Immigration Fraud: Lies That Kill.

Back then, in 1973, immigration agents and adjudicators had access to the NYC welfare database, it helped us uncover marriage fraud and/or welfare fraud.

Petitioners who continued to collect welfare benefits and failed to notify the appropriate agencies that they had gotten married were committing welfare fraud when they did not report their spouses’ earnings.

Often they would admit that they really weren’t living with their “spouses” but were paid to marry the alien.  They had committed immigration fraud but were not sharing the earnings of their bogus spouses, thus explaining why they did not notify welfare authorities.

They withdrew the immigration petitions for their alien spouses, whereupon the aliens were subject to immediate deportation from the United States.

In cases where the couple was actually married and living together, the United States citizen spouses were immediately removed from the welfare rolls and often had to make restitution to avoid criminal prosecution.

Either way justice was served!

In 1975 I became an INS special agent and I discovered that we routinely worked closely with various police departments, including the NYPD.

In fact, INS agents routinely participated in tactical training with the NYPD’s elite Emergency Service Unit (the equivalent of SWAT).

INS agents frequently accompanied the NYPD Public Morals Squad when they conducted raids at brothels.  Often the clientele were illegal aliens who had left their wives or girlfriends back home and hence had the “urge to merge!”  If the police opted to not arrest the clientele, we did, and arranged for their quick trip to back to their home countries.  Once word spread that INS agents might be waiting for them at these houses of prostitution, business plummeted and many shut down.

Meanwhile, we would interview the alien prostitutes to convince them to cooperate and provide us with information about the smugglers who brought them to the United States, so that we could arrest the smugglers and shut down their pernicious human trafficking operations.

Frequently politicians lie about how aliens who are victims of crimes won’t go to the police unless there are sanctuary policies in place.  In reality immigration agents can provide illegal aliens who are victims of crime with temporary permission to remain in the United States and work legally, if they cooperate with the investigations!

Illegal aliens who become cooperators and informants in cases involving serious criminal organizations or terrorist organizations can be granted permanent visas and permitted to bring their nuclear families to live with them permanently in the United States.

On March 18, 2004 I was invited to testify at a hearing before the House Immigration Subcommittee by then-Ranking Member Sheila Jackson Lee (D) Houston, Texas on the topic, “Pushing The Border Out On Alien Smuggling: New Tools And Intelligence Initiatives.”

The “Tools” discussed at that hearing included visas that immigration can provide to illegal alien victims of crime or to illegal aliens who become informants and cooperating witnesses.

Many of my colleagues in other federal agencies and the NYPD told me that the visas and other immigration benefits INS provided created greater incentives for illegal aliens to cooperate with them than the large amounts of money their respective agencies could pay them!

Often we worked cooperatively with the NYPD and other local and state police organizations to help them cultivate informants and to participate in bail hearings, providing incontrovertible evidence of the great risk of flight of alien criminals, based on their immigration records.

Back then local police officers such as members of the fugitive squads would request access to the immigration files of criminal aliens they were seeking.

Those alien files provided a “treasure trove” of leads and materials, including photographs, addresses, employment history and names and addresses of family members.  Under insane “Sanctuary” policies, police today are prohibited from seeking immigration assistance that could lead to the swift arrest of dangerous criminal aliens.

Over time more roadblocks were set up to prevent local police departments from working with immigration law enforcement.  Often this had deadly consequences.

On March 3, 1989 24-year-old NYPD Police Officer Robert E. Machate attempted to arrest a 23-year-old citizen of Panama, Reynaldo Rayside.  In the course of events Rayside attempted to gain possession of Officer Machate’s service weapon.  Shots rang out and Officer Machate was killed.

Here is an account of this senseless tragedy: People v. Rayside.

I testified at the murder trial because several years earlier I was assigned to transport Rayside to JFK International Airport to execute his Warrant of Deportation.  He had been ordered deported because of criminal convictions.

Subsequent to being deported Rayside illegally reentered the United States, a felony under the Immigration and Nationality Act (Title 8, United States Code, Section 1326).

According to NYPD records Rayside was arrested twice by the NYPD, after his deportation, however, under established “sanctuary” policies, the NYPD was prohibited from notifying the INS that he had been arrested and was in police custody.  Those “sanctuary” policies certainly did not provide Officer Machate, nor his family, including his then-pregnant wife with “Sanctuary!”

On February 27, 2003 I testified at a hearing conducted by the House Immigration Subcommittee on the topic:  “New York’s ‘Sanctuary’ Policy And The Effect Of Such Policies On Public Safety, Law Enforcement, And Immigration.”

Today, astonishingly, Democrat politicians focus their political campaigns on their promises to dismantle ICE and immigration law enforcement altogether and end the interior enforcement of our nation’s immigration laws!

The official report, 9/11 And Terrorist Travel was authored by members of the 9/11 Commission Staff and included this important statement:

“Thus, abuse of the immigration system and a lack of interior immigration enforcement were unwittingly working together to support terrorist activity.”

A lack of interior enforcement may have been “unwitting” on 9/11 but it is the absolute intentional goal today of the Democrat Party!  Don’t take my word, listen to what they themselves say!

This column originally appeard in Front Page Magazine.

©2026 Michael Cutler. All rights reserved.

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