Bush: 'Immigration laws should be followed'

Bush: 'Immigration laws should be followed'
Spokeswoman says no room for rebel 'sanctuary' cities

The president expects that federal laws – including immigration laws – will be enforced, leaving the implication there is no room for rebel cities that decide to provide "sanctuary" for illegal aliens, according to a White House spokeswoman.

Dana Perino was responding to a question from Les Kinsolving, WND's correspondent at the White House.

"How will the United States ever develop, adopt and enforce any sort of immigration policy when individual leaders such as San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom have vowed to oppose federal enforcement of such laws and, in fact, are preparing to run a sanctuary city that would facilitate illegal activities, as just reported for the San Francisco Chronicle?" he asked.

"President Bush believes that the laws of this country, including immigration laws, need to be followed," she answered.

In the Chronicle report, Newsom vowed to maintain San Francisco as that type of sanctuary and do everything he can to discourage federal authorities from conducting immigration raids there.

"I will not allow any of my department heads or anyone associated with this city to cooperate in any way, shape or form with these raids," Newsom told the newspaper. "We are a sanctuary city, make no mistake about it."

Newsom has a reputation of making his own decisions. At one point he arbitrarily decided the state's restriction that marriage is only between one man and one woman wasn't for him, and he started issuing marriage certificates to same-sex couples.

The courts later rejected his action.

While officials declared San Francisco a "sanctuary city" in 1989, a move taken by other cities as well, it has no legal impact, and federal immigration authorities have conducted raises in many locations.

"Our action is to stand strong in opposition to these raids … to make sure that we are not contributing in any way, shape or form," he told the paper.

In a related question, Kinsolving asked Perino for the president's reaction to a recent no-confidence vote by U.S. Border Patrol agents.

"The National Border Patrol Council, the union of our 11,000 non-supervisory U.S. Border Patrol agents, has just passed a resolution, which, among other concerns, deplores what they say is, 'shamelessly promoting amnesty and a greatly expanded guest worker program, despite intense opposition to these concepts from the front-line Border Patrol agents who risk their lives enforcing our nation's immigration laws.' … What is the White House reaction to this resolution?" Kinsolving asked.

"I haven't seen the resolution. What I would say is that I would hope that the council would take a look at the president's plan. We are working with members of Congress on both sides of the aisle to try to work through a plan that would help alleviate the pressure at the border. And I understand that they have very real concerns, since they work on the border every day. And the president believes that the plan that we have in place is one that would help alleviate the problems at the border, as well as allow our country to be one that is continuing to be a welcoming one," she said.