Politifact is Politipinion: Houston IS a sanctuary city
Politifact holds itself out as a John Roberts-like umpire of political campaigns, dispassionately calling balls and strikes.
If you're going to do that, then you have to be careful. You have to refrain from favoring certain candidates. And neutral people should overwhelmingly not only agree, but think that disagreement would be childish.
Politifact rated as "false" a claim by Texas GOP Chair Cathie Adams that Houston under Bill White was a sanctuary city.
The Congressional Research Service said that Houston is a sanctuary city. Politifact disagrees because 1) there is no policy posted online, 2) the policy is not backed by ordinance, 3) the CRS didn't explicitly delineate why each jurisdiction was considered a sanctuary city and 4) "there is no official policy."
These things are all correct, but irrelevant and/or misleading. Houston is a sanctuary city. As the Houston Chronicle reported in 2003:
The Houston Police Department's controversial policy, in place for almost 11 years, forbids police from asking about someone's citizenship status and prohibits them from detaining or arresting people solely on the belief they are in the country illegally.
You and I might agree or disagree on whether that is a wise policy, but around the country cities that have policies like this are called sanctuary cities. Houston, under Bill White, was a sanctuary city. When Politifact calls people liars who say this, they are crossing the bounds of reason and wading into mere editorializing
Politifact is just mere politipinion.
Posted by Evan @ 03/31/10 11:28 PM
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Cory Crow recently gave it the moniker PolitiFarce.
I like that.
Posted by kevin @ 04/01/10 08:53 AM
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