The incoming Donald Trump administration has vowed to carry out a mass deportation of illegal aliens. How this will unfold will be the story of the century.
There are many obstacles that the administration must overcome to achieve the deportation of even a fraction of the illegal population in the United States. By far, the biggest roadblock will be going into sanctuary cities and deporting the illegal populations that reside there.
It will be a monumental challenge. A study just published by the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) calculates that almost 60% of the illegal population in the United States, amounting to about eight million individuals, have taken refuge in sanctuary states, cities, and towns. CIS says there are now about 600 of these "sanctuaries" across the country.
The sanctuary jurisdictions do not allow law enforcement or the local government to cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents. ICE officers can still work in those jurisdictions, but without the assistance of local law enforcement to hold illegal aliens until they can be deported, very few deportations can be carried out.
Trump has promised to get tough on sanctuary cities.
Facing rejection from over 600 sanctuaries, the administration said it would retaliate by cutting federal funding to those jurisdictions. Incoming border czar Tom Homan has also threatened to arrest those fighting the federal government, including big-city mayors.
The numbers drawn up by CIS show just how difficult fighting sanctuaries will be for Homan’s team.
The new report, produced by CIS resident scholar Jason Richwine, said that 45% of the illegal population lives in 13 sanctuary states and Washington, D.C. They are protecting 6.3 million illegal immigrants. California holds the most, with 3 million.
Another 750,000 live in states that act like sanctuaries, though they do not have sanctuary laws on their books. They include Virginia, Maryland, and New Mexico. Virginia’s governor, the pro-Trump Glenn Youngkin, has threatened to cut state aid to cities that refuse to cooperate with ICE.
“Although there is much imprecision in the data, the bottom line is that close to eight million illegal aliens, equaling 56 percent of the estimated nationwide total, live in sanctuary jurisdictions,” said CIS’s Jason Richwine in the report.
Texas and Florida have outlawed sanctuary cities, which CIS recommends other red states emulate. About 822,000 illegal aliens are living in sanctuary cities located in red states.
The CIS study found that some 6.3 million illegal aliens reside in the sanctuary states of California, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, North Dakota, Oregon, Rhode Island, Utah, Vermont, and Washington. More than three million illegals live in California alone, with 868,000 in New York and another million in Illinois and New Jersey.
“I want to send a clear message: If you let us in the jail, we can arrest the bad guy in the jail and in the safety and security of the jail,” Homan told Fox News. “One officer could do that, but when you release a public safety threat back in the community, you put the community at risk. You put my officers at risk. You put the alien at risk.”
Cutting funding for sanctuary states is not going to be easy. Trump can't just wave a magic wand and turn off the federal spigot. Most of that funding is authorized by Congress, and making exceptions to funding bills to exclude sanctuary cities is a laborious process that might not even be constitutional.
It's a certainty that Mr. Homan and Donald Trump will have their hands full trying to implement mass deportation with so many hands raised against them.
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