Sanctuary City - Woodstock?

Just what is a sanctuary city? For what seems to be a good explanation, go to www.ojjpac.org/sanctuary.asp

Remember the Mexican woman who took refuge in a Chicago church for a year? And the Chicago cops would not go in a get her? For a whole year?

Only three cities in Illinois are listed: Chicago, Cicero and Evanston. Woodstock is not listed among the Illinois cities on this website, but could it, or does it, follow an unwritten policy of “don’t ask; don’t tell”?

De facto sanctuary cities are those that do not announce themselves as such, but which can be identified as sanctuaries because of actions (or inactions) taken by the municipal government.

From that website: “News reports can also shed light on a local government unwritten policies. For example, did the police department contact ICE after determining that a driver involved in a misdemeanor traffic stop was an illegal alien or was the driver let go with no call to ICE?”

Remembering the foul mouth of yesterday’s driver who hit and damaged a City signpost and drove away without reporting the damage and who one mile down the road rear-ended a stopped car while yakking on his cell phone, I wondered if the Woodstock police officer was able to determine that the driver was legally in the U.S.

When Sheriff Dan Beck was in town from Ohio recently to give a talk at MCC, he explained that his deputies are thoroughly trained to recognize fraudulent identification. And they examine identification carefully to determine whether it might be fraudulent. I would have expected a strong presence of area law enforcement that night to hear what Sheriff Beck had to say, but I don’t think there was one cop there (except for MCC security and Crystal Lake PD officers on duty).

Sheriff Beck stated that he didn’t care whether a person was Hispanic, Chinese, British or American; his deputies would examine ID carefully. And this is as it should be. It is estimated that there are, conservatively, 12,000,000 or more illegal aliens in the United States. Some estimates are as high as 30,000,000.

And this makes me wonder to what extent local law enforcement personnel throughout McHenry County are similarly trained and what the policies are within the various departments as to how carefully identification is examined.

Could Woodstock, Ill. be a de facto sanctuary city?