Mayor Lucas: ‘Kansas City is not breaking the law by inviting legal immigrants’

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (KCTV) - A sanctuary city resolution brought before the mayor and council was held off the docket Tuesday.

Councilman Nathan Willett introduced the resolution that would affirm “to the Missouri State Legislature that Kansas City will not become a sanctuary city for undocumented immigrants.”

The resolution was introduced after a week of pushback from some state and county leaders after the mayor welcomed legal migrants to help fill the labor shortage.

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In the City Council’s Special Committee for Legal Review, Mayor Lucas said they’re not breaking the law when welcoming immigrants living in the U.S. legally to Kansas City.

So, he said there is no need to prove they’re not breaking the law with a resolution.

“I think that our view was in this situation, it’s important for us to make sure we affirm, and we reaffirm the fact that we are welcome to those who are here lawfully,” Lucas said. “But that we obviously always will follow the laws and we don’t need to always pass resolutions to make that clear. Kansas City is not a sanctuary city. Kansas City follows the laws of the state of Missouri and our federal government.”

However, Councilman Willett said state legislators are voting on a $50 billion budget later this month. He’s worried political back and forth on this issue will impact the city’s budget.

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“This resolution is simply to affirm to the state legislator that we are going to follow the state law,” Willett said. “We are not trying to get into culture wars here; we are just trying to stay in our lane.” '

Willett said he was disappointed in the outcome.

“This is absolutely not performative,” Willett said. “We do many resolutions in here to communicate the views of our city. When we have a state budget on the line of $50 billion, we need to be clear that we’re not going to violate state statute.”