Rubio Promises To Defund Detroit, Because Sanctuary Cities?
Rubio's website.
March 2, 2016

I've been arguing since at least last fall that Marco Rubio is the lightest brain in the bunch, but this takes the cake.

On his website promising to "cut off sanctuary cities," Rubio's staff have placed a picture of...Detroit.

Yes, it's six days until the Michigan Primary.

And guess what, some Michigan media geniuses decided to, you know, check out the candidates' websites for background, and...noticed. MLive (Michigan):

A regional spokeswoman for Rubio's campaign did not return multiple requests for comment on the image and whether Rubio's policy would in fact end all federal funding for Detroit.

The photo's first appearance on the Internet appears to have been in 2012 on a website called www.detroitghetto.com. A representative from the website said the Rubio campaign had not asked for or received permission to use the picture.

The photo is the first image to appear when "Detroit ghetto" is typed into the Google search bar. A small address visible in the photo places it at 6530 E. Palmer St., and the landscape matches Google street view mapping of that address in Detroit.

So the Rubio campaign needed an image for their "defund sanctuary cities" page and Googled "Detroit ghetto"? It's possible. What is also possible is, they didn't check to see if Detroit actually considers itself a sanctuary city. They don't. From MLive again, emphasis mine.

Sanctuary cities came into the spotlight last year when man with a felony record who had been deported multiple times allegedly killed a woman in San Francisco, which has a longstanding policy prohibiting city employees from helping with federal immigration enforcement.

No Michigan city has a similar policy, said Ryan Bates, executive director of social justice group Michigan United.

"The policy in Detroit is that the city has included in their non-discrimination ordinance a provision that says essentially if somebody gets pulled over for a traffic stop or other minor issue that it's not the policy of the city to call in immigration to check someone's immigration status," Bates said.

In other words, Detroit does not waste its already underfunded law enforcement resources cleaning up the Congress's failure on immigration reform. A great number of states and municipalities have decided that checking the immigration status of everyone they pull over for a busted tail-light, is, duh, a waste of taxpayer money.

So Rubio picked on Detroit, which is not a 'sanctuary city,' for being one, promised on his website to defund cities like Detroit when Detroit is not that, And then used a picture of a "Detroit Ghetto" to illustrate his point. About cutting off funding. Six days before the primary.

Maybe later he can put in a call to Reince Priebus about how that party outreach to Black and Latino voters is going.

Can you help us out?

For nearly 20 years we have been exposing Washington lies and untangling media deceit, but now Facebook is drowning us in an ocean of right wing lies. Please give a one-time or recurring donation, or buy a year's subscription for an ad-free experience. Thank you.

Discussion

We welcome relevant, respectful comments. Any comments that are sexist or in any other way deemed hateful by our staff will be deleted and constitute grounds for a ban from posting on the site. Please refer to our Terms of Service for information on our posting policy.
Mastodon