Toronto Police Chief's Sane Approach to "Sanctuary City" Madness

The Toronto Sun's Sue Anne Levy got Chief Mark Sanders to explain how cops get around that "sanctuary city" stuff:

The police chief said despite calls by refugee advocates to stop reporting illegals engaged in criminal activity, they’re “bound by law” to do so. 

Saunders said in keeping with his forces “don’t ask” policy, officers certainly don’t round up people on “status and status alone.” But when someone is involved in a crime, investigators have to do a full check of their status — and the public expects that. 

“The policy we have is ‘don’t ask’ not ‘don’t ask don’t tell,’ he said 

“My officers will not ask status we are trained not to ask that question.” 

I asked Saunders to weigh in on Toronto’s Sanctuary City policy, put in place in 2013 and reinforced by Mayor John Tory, also a police services board member, at a Jan. 31 photo-op. 

The city’s policy advises staff not to report illegals accessing city services to federal immigration authorities — should they become aware of their status. 

The suggestion is that police do the same. 

Saunders, however, is adamant officers will “investigate fully” if criminality is involved. 

“If there is somebody who shouldn’t be here who is shooting at other people it would only make prudent sense for us to deal with that from the criminal perspective and the status perspective,” he said. 

“I don’t want citizens to be shooting up the city so I don’t want people who don’t necessarily have the status to be shooting up the city, either.”

Makes sense to me, chief.