Ganim opposes sanctuary city “terminology”
- Brian Lockhart | CTPost
- 25 févr. 2017
- 2 min de lecture
BRIDGEPORT — Mayor Joe Ganim offered a rationale for opposing an effort to join Hartford and New Haven and designate Connecticut’s largest municipality a “sanctuary” for undocumented immigrants fearful of President Donald Trump.
“I don’t like the terminology,” Ganim said Friday of so-called sanctuary cities. “It’s been divisive.”
Still, he insisted, “This is a hospitable city.” And Ganim said he would try to work with members of the City Council who are pushing the sanctuary designation, though he offered no promises or specifics.
Ganim made his comments Friday at an appearance with a just-arrived family of Syrian refugees. The photo opportunity capped off a week of the Democratic mayor awkwardly navigating the politics of immigration in age of the Republican Trump.
The White House has pledged to crackdown on undocumented immigrants, many of whom call heavily diverse urban centers like Bridgeport home. Immigrants and their advocates -- over 100 protestors showed up at City Hall Monday — want elected officials to adopt anti-Trump “sanctuary” policies, like pledging local police are not to act as federal immigration agents.
“Our (police) chief is an immigrant,” Ganim said Friday of Cuban-born Armando “A.J.” Perez. “Need I say more?”
Meanwhile Trump has threatened to strip sanctuary cities of federal aid, which Ganim needs to balance his budget.
Up until Friday Ganim had not, publicly, offered much comment on the sanctuary push in Bridgeport. But behind-the-scenes he and his advisers have been working to convince council members to abandon the effort over Trump’s threatened federal cuts.
The mayor only addressed Monday’s protesters to scold them for disrupting a regularly scheduled City Council meeting.
Tuesday he used social media to criticize the protesters as out-of-town suburbanites because one photographed by the Connecticut Post lives in Fairfield. It turned out she was director of development and communications at the Bridgeport-based Child and Family Guidance Center, a nonprofit offering mental health support to undocumented immigrants and other low income clients.
Pour consulter l'article portant sur la ville de Montréal :
http://www.journaldemontreal.com/2017/02/20/montreal-est-maintenant-une-ville-sanctuaire
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