It is not only legally defensible but crucial to our national security for cities and states to be allowed to pass and uphold sanctuary laws to assure taxpaying residents — regardless of immigration status — that their local government will protect them from federal overreach.

It is fundamental principle for any local, state or federal sovereign to have discretion over how it will enforce its laws. As the Supreme Court noted in Heckler v. Chaney, an enforcement agency's decisions should reflect “factors which are peculiarly within its expertise.” Localities, not Washington bureaucrats, are best suited to determine local law enforcement according to a multitude of factors, in any given situation.

Even within those areas that the federal government does exercise authority, like immigration, it cannot force state or local governments to strip residents of rights and protections that have been passed by local legislature.

And at a time of eroded trust in police, states and cities must focus on how enforcement can be aided by local cooperation. A study by the Department of Urban Planning and Policy at the University of Illinois, Chicago, found that increased involvement of local police in immigration enforcement in cities only served to erode trust in the legal system among residents.

Should the U.S. use all of its might to protect our neighborhoods from those who threaten violent attacks? Of course. But Donald J. Trump's diatribes against sanctuary cities do not protect Americans — they only seed suspicion and divert attention from real concerns. The immense power of the U.S., and the money of taxpayers, should not be used to persecute, incarcerate and deport an undocumented parent working hard with the hopes of one day seeing her daughter become an attorney.

More broadly, opponents of sanctuary cities — like Kansas's secretary of state, Kris Kobach, the president-elect’s immigration adviser — forget that the U.S. fought against and declared independence from an imperial naval power to protect cherished liberties from an arbitrary central government embodied by an executive that could act by caprice through the throne.

The president-elect has a clear choice: Build trust among all Americans to keep the nation safe or allow disconnected political swindlers to divide the nation for their own careers. When each and every American — including the undocumented — has a stake in national security, in their neighborhoods, this country will have an even firmer foundation for protecting itself against foreign and domestic attacks.

Sanctuary Cities Must Cooperate With Federal Enforcement

Jan C. Ting, a professor at Temple University's Beasley School of Law, is a former assistant commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

UPDATED DECEMBER 1, 2016, 4:27 PM