Republicans try to link sanctuary cities to the opioid epidemic. They fail. | McClatchy Washington Bureau

Efforts to find solutions to the opioid epidemic have managed to stay mostly above the fray of partisan politics. But inject the issue of immigration into just about anything these days and even the pretense of unity evaporates.

A Feb. 15 hearing by the House Judiciary Committee’s immigration subcommittee was triggered by complaints from Nick Rodgers, president of the Denver police union, that Denver’s sanctuary city ordinance — which discourages officers from communicating with federal immigration authorities — is impeding efforts to combat the opioid crisis.

Trouble is, it turns out there’s precious little evidence to back that up. In fact, the Denver Police Department itself disagrees with Rodgers.

Things quickly devolved into a series of partisan barbs.

“It would seem to me that if tomorrow morning everyone magically woke up in their home country where they could legally reside, it would immediately stop all the illegal drug distribution in America,” said Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa. He was responding to comments by Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., that Republicans “delight in scapegoating immigrants.”

Multiple law enforcement and policy experts characterized King’s comments as “insane,” “ridiculous” and “outrageously stupid.” In general, they said the hearing appeared designed to allow those who are already opponents of sanctuary cities to use the opioid crisis to bolster their arguments.

While the Drug Enforcement Agency estimates the vast majority of heroin in the U.S. is facilitated in some way through Mexican drug cartels, “most of the people that I prosecuted at the border for moving huge amounts of drugs were U.S. citizens,” said Arthur Rizer, who was a federal drug prosecutor with the Department of Justice. “Sure, you get some immigrants with backpacks of stuff, but the tractor trailers full of drugs are typically going to be people here legally.”

Jackson County Sheriff A.J. Louderback of Texas argued that sanctuary city policies make the process of detaining drug dealers who are illegal immigrants less efficient, and a lack of efficiency in law enforcement increases the likelihood that criminals wind up back on the streets. But Jackson County is in some ways the opposite of a sanctuary city; it’s part of a program that allows local deputies to enforce federal immigration laws.

“If someone is a foreign national, we can immediately get their complete criminal history through ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) and DHS (Department of Homeland Security). That way there’s no chance someone with criminal history will bond out quickly, because we’ll find that history,” Louderback said. “And when these drug dealers bond out, they don’t show up back in court. They disappear back into your community.”

While there are instances of undocumented immigrants committing crimes and being released in sanctuary cities only to reoffend, Louderback couldn’t name an example of a drug trafficker getting away due to sanctuary city policies.

And Rizer and Dr. Keith Humphreys, former senior policy advisor for the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, argued sanctuary cities actually tend to help law enforcement catch drug dealers, because immigrant communities, less nervous about the risk of deportation, are more likely to report drug dealers working on their street corners and cooperate in law enforcement investigations. There are no studies specifically on that issue (although police departments in Houston and Los Angeles, both considered sanctuary cities, have reported decreases in Hispanics reporting crimes since President Donald Trump took office, indicating that anti-immigrant language in general may have a chilling effect).

Even if sanctuary cities do allow drug suspects to post bond sooner, Humphreys said, they’ll eventually be able to do so no matter where they get arrested. In addition, once an undocumented immigrant is convicted, ICE is notified regardless of the location.

“Not to mention, everyone involved in drug dealing is very replaceable,” Humphreys said. “You hold a guy in jail for a few more days, another person just takes his spot.”

Humphreys, Rizer and Christopher Wilson, deputy director of the Mexico Institute at the Wilson Center, all said they’ve seen no evidence that drug dealers target sanctuary cities, as the hearing suggested. And while Wilson said it’s an issue worth looking into as a small piece of a broad effort, he noted that the conversation is only a useful one if both the pluses and minuses of sanctuary cities are considered in connection with the opiod epidemic.

“There’s room to talk about what we’re prioritizing in cutting off the supply,” Wilson said. “But generally our resources have been over-focused on the supply side and under-focused on the demand (treatment) side.”

Humphreys said a hearing on improving treatment options through expanding Medicaid or insurance would have been more helpful.

“You only have so much time and energy, so you should be placing your bets where you can actually succeed,” he said.