US Attorney General Jeff Sessions renewed the call this week to strip so-called ‘sanctuary cities’ of some federal funding, but Urbana Mayor Laurel Prussing questions whether that would be legal.
City leaders reaffirmed Urbana’s 30-year old status as a sanctuary city late last year…offering some protections to those living in the country illegally.
Prussing says she’s confident that the Trump Administration can’t withhold federal grant funds… saying Urbana’s sanctuary measure was prepared with solid legal advice:
“There is a constitutional provision that the federal government can’t just assign its functions to local governments – and we’re not violating any laws, so we’ll just see how this plays out.”
Prussing says Attorney General Sessions is ‘completely backwards’ when suggesting people living in the US illegally are responsible for a lot of crime.
She says the Trump Administration is sending a message of ‘hatemongering’… and it’s not what this country stands for.