El Paso leaders sound off on Abbott’s sanctuary cities plan

on whether to follow the governor’s orders on the so- called “sanctuar city” policies. governor greg abbott is hoping to crack down on local governments that ban police from asking about a person’s immigration status. he is calling on state lawmakers to make the ban a law during their next session in 2017. governor abbott today blasted the dallas county sheriff over her recent decision to release immigrants on a “case-by-case basis — even if the feds asked them to be held in jail. el paso county commissioner david stout agrees with her: “i think we have a strong legislative delegation and we’ll be fighting this very hard in the next legislative session. we have laws on the books and we need to follow those books. its not up to us to pick and choose if we pick and choose which laws to follow, and that affects el paso as a whole financially its something we need to seriously think about and say is this the right decision we need to be making.” despite overwhelming republican majorities, the texas legislature has failed to pass sanctuary cities proposals in three consecutive sessions. ‘