By Mary Beth Lane, The Columbus Dispatch
COLUMBUS – The Columbus City Council plans to enact into law Mayor Andrew J. Ginther’s executive order that prohibits arresting or denying public services to immigrants in the city based on their immigration status.
READ MORE: In The Columbus Dispatch
It does not designate Columbus as a “sanctuary city,” as some other cities have done.
“Now isn’t the time to focus on labels, especially when that focus could unnecessarily and unfairly target and harm families and children in our community,” council President Zach Klein said in announcing the proposed ordinance Thursday at a public hearing about the city’s policies on immigrants and refugees.
“Instead, now is the time to double down on policies that unequivocally show that we stand with our immigrant and refugee friends.”
The council expects to introduce the proposal on May 22 and could approve it as soon as June 5.
It would make permanent in city law the executive order that Ginther issued in February that prohibits using city money, equipment or personnel solely to find and apprehend people based on their suspected immigration status, unless such actions are taken in response to a court order. It also would bar the city from denying access to services based on immigration status.
“It puts in concrete, in city code, exactly where our values are,” Klein said.
The mayor’s executive order and the proposed ordinance are responses by the city’s elected leaders to President Donald Trump’s executive orders involving immigrants and refugees. His most recent order, which has been temporarily blocked by federal courts, would prohibit citizens of six majority-Muslim countries from obtaining new visas. The order also would suspend the U.S. resettlement program for 120 days and cut the annual number of refugee admissions for fiscal year 2017 to 50,000 from the originally scheduled 110,000.