In June 2011, an illegal alien and habitual drunk driver named Saul Chavez ran over and killed Dennis McCann, of Chicago. Chavez had recently finished a sentence of two years of probation for an earlier aggravated drunk driving offense. The judge set bond at $250,000, and ICE issued a detainer, but just before Thanksgiving, Chavez's brother appeared with the $25,000 cash, so the sheriff's office took the money and let Chavez run. After Chavez missed a court date (surprise!), police paid a visit to his house to take him back into custody. His roommate, the brother, insists he's just out running errands, but police have concluded that he has fled…

One does not know if Chicago Mayor and former Obama White House Chief of Staff Rahm “Rahmbo” Emanuel ever met the family of Dennis McCann of Chicago. He can’t talk to McCann himself about Chicago’s lawsuit against DOJ enforcement of federal immigration laws since McCann is dead, killed by an illegal alien who was driving drunk. As Jessica Vaughan reported at the Center for Immigration Studies :

Dennis McCann's family is not only grief-stricken at this senseless and preventable loss (Chavez should have been turned over to ICE after his first offense), but astounded at how indifferent the county government and ICE have been to this outcome. They have written to all the commissioners asking them to rescind the ordinance, and tried unsuccessfully to obtain information from ICE on whether it gave the OK for Chavez's release. The County Commissioner who sponsored the ordinance, Jesus "Chuy" Garcia, has replied to Brian McCann, the victim's brother, in a three-page letter overflowing with legal fictions and delusional statements. In the letter, Garcia insists that obstructing ICE efforts to take custody of criminal aliens is necessary "to protect the integrity of the criminal justice process."

Also concerned with the “integrity of the process rather than the victims of illegal alien crime is Rahm Emanuel who has announced a lawsuit to block DOJ from denying funds from cities that refuse to cooperate with ICE. As Fox News Politics reported:

T he city filed its suit over the Justice Department's threat to withhold Byrne grants for law enforcement groups from sanctuary cities. The city’s mayor, Rahm Emanuel, likened this to “blackmail.” “Chicago will not be blackmailed into changing our values, and we are and will remain a welcoming city,” Emanuel said. “The federal government should be working with cities to provide necessary resources to improve public safety, not concocting new schemes to reduce our crime-fighting resources.”… (Atty. Gen.) Sessions said the city of Chicago has chosen to protect “criminal aliens who prey on their own residents” instead of enforcing laws meant to protect law enforcement…. “Chicago will not let our police officers become political pawns in a debate,” Emanuel said. “Chicago will not let our residents have their fundamental rights isolated and violated. And Chicago will never relinquish our status as a welcoming city.”

Indeed it has. And what exactly are Chicago values in a city that has more murders than New York and Los Angeles combined? How does allowing sanctuary for those who kill, rape, maim, and murder American citizens improve public safety? Chicago is a welcoming city only to criminal and illegal alien killers: As a July 28 Chicago Sun-Times article reprinted in the suburban Daily Herald documents, Rahm Emanuel’s policies have done little to stem the carnage:

A man was shot to death early Friday near the former Cabrini-Green public housing projects on Chicago's Near North Side, according to police, marking the city's 400th homicide so far this year… His death, the city's 400th homicide of 2017, happened early on the 207th day of the year, meaning Chicago has logged nearly two homicides per day, according to data maintained by the Chicago Sun-Times.

Rahm Emanuel had no objection to Obama’s proposed defunding of unrelated matters in North Carolina. Implicit in accepting federal funding, one would think, would be the condition of obeying the laws of the United States which sanctuary city officials are sworn to uphold. The laws of the United States give the President control of immigration policy and the Constitution gives the President control of foreign policy and border security.

Title 8 U.S.C. 1324 makes it quite explicit that harboring and concealing from detection illegal aliens is a felony, whether committed by individuals or sanctuary city officials:

Harboring — Subsection 1324(a)(1)(A)(iii) makes it an offense for any person who -- knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that an alien has come to, entered, or remains in the United States in violation of law, conceals harbors, or shields from detection, or attempts to conceal, harbor, or shield from detection, such alien in any place, including any building or any means of transportation.

Now it may be argued that the DOJ would be better off legally prosecuting sanctuary city mayors rather than trying to withhold federal funds from their cities, but one is not exclusive of the other. Sanctuary city mayors are in clear violation of federal statute, so for anyone to argue that withholding federal funds from those violating federal law is unconstitutional is, again, nonsense.

Sanctuary city officials could very well be prosecuted for breaking the law and recklessly endangering their citizens by harboring and shielding from scrutiny illegal aliens among whose number may include assorted Islamic State agents, sympathizers and potential lone wolf recruits, along with assorted criminals, like the one charged with the murder of Kate Steinle in the sanctuary city of San Francisco. They are accomplices in crime.

That is the suggestion of Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal. Jindal made the case on recently on Boston Herald Radio:

“Absolutely, I would hold them as an accomplice. Make them criminally culpable,” the Republican presidential candidate said when asked if he’d arrest mayors of sanctuary cities. “I’d also make them civilly liable so that families, victim’s families could sue. Especially if the prosecutor isn’t taking action or the mayor’s not changing their ways, I’d allow the families to go to court as well to recover damages.”

Again, neither Rahm Emanuel or any others who legislate from the bench had no problem with the Obama administration’s “guidance” to schools that sex discrimination now included sexual identity and that those that didn’t provide transgendered restrooms put their federal funding at risk.

Where is the sanctuary for American citizens? While Emanuel welcomes criminals from south of the border, children are being murdered on the South Side of Chicago. When President Obama opened our borders to many thousands of unaccompanied minors and others, Chicago residents exploded at the politically motivated double standard. As Investor’s Business Daily editorialized:

It hasn't escaped notice of the residents of Obama's hometown who gathered Friday to protest the president's $3.7 billion request to help Central American children escape violence while they see little being done to end the violence in which 120 people have been shot and 26 killed so far this month. "You're spending billions of dollars in Texas, but we've got a problem right here in Chicago," said a local resident Friday, one of many from Chicago's Southside who assembled in front of the Chicago Police Department to protest the violence plaguing their neighborhoods. They condemned President Obama for paying more attention to illegal aliens crossing our southern border than to the children of his hometown. "Do something for our children," said one of the protesters in a video posted at the blog Rebel Pundit. "Have the same love for these young people like you got for the ones across the border, and you want to save them."… May we be so cynical as to suggest that in the political calculations of President Obama and the Democrats the black vote is taken for granted but the Hispanic vote is still in play? Are these undocumented aliens or undocumented future Democrats?

Aye, there’s the rub. Illegal aliens can vote for the mayors that welcome them. Too bad their victims can’t. American citizens’ lives matter.

Daniel John Sobieski is a freelance writer whose pieces have appeared in Investor’s Business Daily, Human Events, Reason Magazine and the Chicago Sun-Times among other publications.