On Monday, Donald Trump issued an executive order on immigration and sanctuary cities that promises to bring the issue of non-cooperation by cities with the government on enforcing immigration law to a head.
Trump directed Attorney General Pam Bondi and the Department of Homeland Security “to identify cities and states that don’t sufficiently comply with Trump’s federal immigration laws within a month,” according to Axios.
Trump wants Bondi to publish the list of jurisdictions that refuse to cooperate with immigration authorities and to notify them of non-compliance, giving them the opportunity to correct their policies.
Failing that, the cities may lose federal funding.
“It’s quite simple: obey the law, respect the law, and don’t obstruct federal immigration officials and law enforcement officials when they are simply trying to remove public safety threats from our nation’s communities,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Monday. “The American public don’t [sic] want illegal alien criminals in their communities. They made that quite clear on November 5, and this administration is determined to enforce our nation’s immigration laws.”
A federal judge has already put a roadblock before Trump’s efforts to cut funding to sanctuary cities. Last week, a judge ruled that parts of the president’s executive order signed in February on sanctuary cities were “unconstitutional,” claiming, quite rightly, that only Congress has the power to cut programs.
“The new executive order does not run afoul of the spending clause, nor is it susceptible to arguments that changes are being made without due process,” Lawfare Project senior counsel Gerard Filitti told Axios.
This doesn’t mean that Trump couldn’t lean on Congress to cut funding to sanctuary cities. There may even be a few congressional Democrats joining Republicans in showing sanctuary cities that Trump was serious.
Specifically, the executive order will notify sanctuary cities of their status and allow them to drop the sanctuary title — or risk losing federal funding. Additionally, it instructs Attorney General Pam Bondi and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to “pursue all legal remedies” to push sanctuary cities into compliance with federal law, according to a Monday White House fact sheet shared with Fox News Digital.
Bondi and Noem are also instructed to establish proper channels ensuring that those in sanctuary cities do not receive federal public benefits.
Some of the country’s largest cities have some sort of sanctuary law on the books aimed at protecting their illegal immigrant residents, including Chicago, New York City, Boston and Los Angeles, according to the Center for Immigration Studies. Some states have even gone on to pass their own sanctuary laws, including California, Oregon, Washington.
The sanctuary cities argue that cooperating with ICE “would drain their resources and undermine trust between police and immigrant communities,” reports Fox News. That’s the standard argument used by Democrats when the real reason for refusing to cooperate with federal immigration authorities is political.
“Draining resources” is nonsense. Even minimal cooperation with the Feds would be hugely valuable. As far as illegal aliens being less likely to report a crime, they’re already pretty close-mouthed about talking to the cops. One study shows that immigration enforcement “does not impact immigrants’ confidence in the police. However, security concerns (terrorism and a sense of safety) and demographic variables do influence this confidence.”
“We conclude that immigration enforcement is not a major determinant of immigrants’ confidence in the police compared to other factors,” the study concluded.
Big city Democratic mayors simply don’t want the political trouble ICE would cause them. Soon, they may have to choose between being politically comfortable and losing millions in funding.
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