About 75 activists and immigration advocates gathered outside City Hall on Tuesday to demand that Mayor Cherelle L. Parker speak out forcefully on Philadelphia’s status as a sanctuary city.
“A sanctuary for one is a sanctuary for all!” Erika Guadalupe Núñez, executive director of Juntos, announced to the audience, who cheered and banged drums in response. “This is the time for intentional action.”
Demonstrators representing at least six organizations gathered in the afternoon on the south side of City Hall, next to a statue of civil rights activist Octavius Catto and near the flashing lights of a Christmas carousel where passing cars honked. After an hour, they drove north across John F. Kennedy Boulevard and Broad Street, en route to the Philadelphia ICE office at Eighth Street and Cherry Street, where they held a vigil on behalf of detained immigrants.
Philadelphia was among the strongest sanctuary cities, places that deliberately limit cooperation with federal immigration authorities, but Parker missed opportunities to assert the city’s position.
“Mayor, if you support immigrants, please stand up and say, ‘I intend to support sanctuary city policies,’” said Julio Rodriguez, political director of the advocacy group Pennsylvania Immigration Coalition. “This ambiguity is unacceptable.”
He noted that this year, the mayor celebrated Immigrant Heritage Month while also designating the city as a Certified Host City.
“Depending on the month, it’s pro-immigration,” Rodriguez said. “This is not one of those months.”
Mayoral spokesman Joe Grace said Tuesday that the administration’s comments on the matter are the same as those made last week: The administration is focused on improving public safety and the quality of life for Philadelphians, not responding to the rhetoric of President-elect Donald Trump, who promised mass deportations of immigrants.
Grace stated that the city’s 2016 detainee ordinance – this instructs employees to respond to court ordersand not for detainees issued by ICE to hold immigrants in custody – remains in effect.
“The Parker Administration remains focused on the agenda that Philadelphians elected it to pursue: making Philadelphia a safer, cleaner and greener city, with access to economic opportunity for all,” Grace previously said.
The rally came as Parker nears the end of his first year in office and Trump, who is scheduled to be inaugurated next month, announces aggressive action against sanctuary cities across the United States.
Parker’s caution around the sanctuary raised concerns among local immigrant community leaders that people could be vulnerable at a time when Trump is promising to deport millions of undocumented immigrants, including about 47,000 in Philadelphia.
“It’s time for the mayor to speak up for the people,” said Jay Lee, advocacy and communications manager for the Worri Center, an Asian American criminal justice group that attended the rally. “The city is our home. We must protect our rights, defend our neighbors.”
City Council member Rue Landau, who called for hearings on Trump’s readiness, told rally participants that they had gathered not only to protect politics but also to defend the principle: “that our city will not be a place of fear, but a safe place.”
“Let me be clear,” she said. “We will not change our sanctuary city policy on my watch. … I will do everything in my power to ensure that public resources are never used to support federal efforts to deport, track and select people based on their national origin, or enforce discriminatory laws.”
A spokesman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said all citizens have the right to peacefully protest and have their voices heard.
“However, we must emphasize that the policy of non-cooperation endangers the city’s citizens, law enforcement officers and foreigners themselves. We call on city governments to work with ICE to protect their citizens and residents,” the spokesman said.
Sanctuary cities are becoming an increasingly volatile political issue and a potential vulnerability for Democrats, who, after suffering a devastating defeat in national elections, are trying to win back voters who believe the party has a soft spot for immigration.
During her campaign last year, Parker said she supported Philadelphia as a sanctuary city, but neither she nor other candidates made it an issue.
Some consider the mayor’s approach politically astute given the unpredictability of the Trump administration’s policies.
Larry Ceisler, a public affairs director based in Philadelphia, previously told The Inquirer that Parker’s language was “responsibly cautious” after Trump’s election.
“He’s walking a really good line here,” Ceisler said. “And you’re dealing with a potential administration in Washington that no one has ever dealt with before — one that’s openly talking about vengeance and vindictiveness.”
Trump has announced the largest mass deportation program in American history, which his advisers are discussing how to deprive Democrat-run cities of federal funds if their leaders refuse to support him. Trump said he would do it ask Congress to pass a law banning sanctuary cities and demand that the “full weight of the federal government” fall on jurisdictions that refuse to cooperate with ICE.
Sanctuary cities generally refuse to replace local police officers as ICE agents, and some places, including New Jersey, are seeking to ban immigration detention centers.
Parker’s message was much less absolute and contrasted not only with statements by some Democratic leaders in other cities but also with her predecessor, former Mayor Jim Kenney.
In 2018, the Kenney administration fought and won a major federal lawsuit over Trump’s efforts to get local police to enforce federal immigration laws, kicked ICE off a database it said the agency was using to find undocumented people, and barred employees cities asking residents questions about their immigration status.
Philadelphia and other sanctuary jurisdictions typically do not honor detainers issued by ICE to hold undocumented people in custody beyond their court-ordered release date, responding only to court orders. Sanctuary city leaders say they could be sued if they follow ICE’s administrative orders and detain people beyond judge-set release dates.
Other places and states say law enforcement officials, federal and local, must work together to deport people who are in the country illegally. States including Florida, Arizona and Texas have passed laws banning the creation of sanctuary cities.
Mayor Parker “has an opportunity to be a leader and really stay strong,” said Peter Pedemonti, co-director of the New Sanctuary Movement in Philadelphia, standing with others at the rally. The mayor speaking out will send a “message to Philadelphia’s immigrant communities that the city stands behind them.”
