Tag Archives: Sanctuary city

This Isn’t Going To End Well

Posted on by

American ‘Sanctuary Cities’ are going out of their way to feed, house, and clothe people who are here illegally. That makes no sense at all when Americans are homeless. We need to find a way to help America’s homeless before we take in someone else’s homeless. Some cities are doing amazing financial acrobatics in order to meet the needs of the influx of homeless, jobless, needy illegal immigrants.

On Thursday, The Daily Caller reported:

The Democratic-run city of Denver, Colorado, plans to defund its police department to pay for illegal immigrants.

Denver, which is commonly referred to as a “sanctuary city,” announced on Wednesday that it will spend $89.9 million on services for incoming illegal migrants, pulling some of the funding from roughly $45 million in public programs and services. Denver’s police department will be hit with an $8.4 million reduction — about 1.9% of its total operating budget, the city confirmed to the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Denver became the top destination per capita for incoming migrants in 2023, having had more than 40,000 arrive that year alone — putting the total migrant population at roughly 710,000, according to NBC News. Denver already spent over $42 million in 2023 in housing and medical services for migrants and plans to spend over $100 million on similar costs in 2024.

The fire department will also suffer a $2.5 million reduction, or about 0.8% of its total operating costs, the city told the DCNF. Half of those reductions will also come from vacant positions.

Today, we shared a new budget and a more sustainable newcomer program.

Proud of our city for welcoming those most in need. Proud of our city teams who found ways to minimize budget without major impacts.

Note the use of the word ‘newcomer’ instead of illegal immigrant.

The article concludes:

Over 15,000 migrants have flooded into Denver since May 2023 as a result of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s busing effort. The Lone Star state sits at the epicenter of the illegal immigration crisis.

More broadly, illegal immigration in cities and states across the U.S. has surged under the Biden administration. There were roughly 1.6 million migrant encounters at the northern and southern border in fiscal year 2021, compared to over 2 million in fiscal year 2023 and roughly a million in the first five months of fiscal year 2024, according to Customs and Border Protection data.

Every state is becoming a border state, and every city is becoming a sanctuary city.

 

This Is Not Legal

Posted on by

The open border and the flood of illegal immigrants has hit many of our major cities hard. Those cities are trying to feed, house, and provide medical care for thousands of new residents–sometimes at the expense of the American citizens who already live there. Recent events in Chicago illustrate the problem.

On Tuesday, Breitbart reported:

Chicago’s Democrat Mayor Brandon Johnson recently touted his efforts to bestow $18 million exclusively to “black and brown” businesses to feed the thousands of illegal border crossers the city is housing.

Johnson’s administration partnered with the Greater Chicago Food Depository, BJ’s Market, and other nonprofits by diverting the huge sum to minority-owned businesses, according to WFLD-TV.

During a press conference on the partnership, the “sanctuary city” mayor celebrated the program, applauding “black and brown businesses” as the “soul” of Chicago.

“The $17 million investment for these 18 black and brown small businesses, is really the, um… it really captures what I call the soul of Chicago. It’s who we are,” Johnson told the media.

It may be who you are, but I believe it is illegal under the Civil Rights Law to discriminate on the basis of color. Are we now going to have to pass laws prohibiting discrimination against white people?

The article concludes:

Johnson has faced backlash from his own constituency over the billions of dollars he has diverted to give illegals free housing, free food, free clothing, free education, free healthcare, free legal advice, and any manner of freebies that have been denied the Windy City’s black population.

 

Are There Benefits To Being An American Citizen?

Posted on by

On Thursday, The Washington Examiner posted an article about the challenges facing Chicago as a sanctuary city.

The article reports:

Since last year, upwards of 10,000 immigrants have arrived in Chicago, most of them bused there by Texas officials through no choice of their own. This has presented a challenge for Chicago, which has made itself a “sanctuary city.”

Wednesday night, in order to deal with the influx, the Chicago City Council voted 34-13 to approve $51 million for immigrant housing. But this was no long-term fix; rather, that funding is only expected to last the city through the end of June. Since January, the city has spent over $100 million on the immigrant crisis.

And not everybody in the city was happy about the decision. At the meeting, longtime Chicago residents voiced their opposition to the funding. Fox Chicago reported, “Several groups in Chicago are asking how the city can suddenly come up with millions of dollars for new visitors, while local communities remain neglected.” Multiple people had to be escorted out of the meeting for their vocal opposition, and Mayor Brandon Johnson had to restore order after it became too raucous.

The sentiment behind the opposition makes sense. Chicago is a city that already has a million different problems. In 2022, crime spiked by 41%, and although shootings have actually slightly dropped in recent years, Chicago is still one of the top 10 cities when it comes to murders per capita. Just last weekend, 60 people were shot, and 12 were killed in holiday violence. There is also a significant homelessness problem, and dozens of schools in Chicago report zero students proficient in math or reading. Businesses are leaving the city at an alarming rate, all while it looks like taxes are about to become even more burdensome in order to raise additional revenue. In other words, Chicago is a complete mess right now.

The money is going to be spent on people who are here illegally. Why are we not shipping them back to their home countries or demanding that their home countries pay part of the bill? How much foreign aid are we giving their home countries as we pay to take care of their citizens? I don’t mind helping people, but why are we putting the welfare of people who are here illegally above the welfare of people who are legitimate citizens?

The Cost Of Being A Liberal Mayor

Posted on by

Open borders are expensive in many ways. A number of mayors of sanctuary cities have been forced to put their money where their mouth is, and it hasn’t been pretty. One recent example is Mayor Eric Adams in New York City.

On Wednesday, Front Page Magazine reported the following:

Want to know why Mayor Eric Adams is panicking? The numbers are ugly. New York City has no shortage of social problems, but Biden’s open borders crisis is really taking a bite out of the Big Apple.

Each illegal migrant costs NYC, over $10,000 a month.

New York City on average spends about $363 a day on each asylum seeker household receiving services in city shelters and emergency relief centers and is on track to spend a total of $1.4 billion by the end of the fiscal year in June, Office of Emergency Management Commissioner Zach Iscol said during a recent City Council hearing.

The cost for the “asylum seeker crisis” could double to $2.8 billion in the next fiscal year, Iscol told the panel during a hearing last week. He said the city cannot maintain that support.

That could be somewhere in the neighborhood of 2% of the city’s budget, but it piles on top of innumerable social problems that are already draining a city whose tax base is fleeing.

More than 30,000 newly arrived migrants are staying in city-run facilities. If those numbers continue to worsen, they’ll eat up even more of the budget.

I wonder what feedback the Biden administration is getting from the mayors whose cities are suffering because of illegal immigration. The negative impact of allowing children into the schools who have not been properly vaccinated for measles, chickenpox, etc., is being felt by all of the residents. The Democrats want voters and the Country Club Republicans want cheap labor, but meanwhile both groups are hurting average Americans and their children.

When You Declare Yourself A Sanctuary City, But…

Posted on by

On Monday, The Western Journal posted an article about how Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot deals with immigrants after declaring Chicago a sanctuary city.

The article reports:

The word “hypocrisy” is being bandied about in reference to Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot after she shunted illegal immigrants to a suburban after initially saying they were welcome in her city.

This summer, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott decided that Democrat-run cities that support illegal immigration by calling themselves sanctuary cities should share in the flood of illegal immigrants crowing the border. As such, Chicago, New York City and Washington, D.C., have seen busloads of illegal immigrants arrive.

When the first busload of illegal immigrants arrived, Lightfoot called the moment an important episode in Chicago’s history.

“This is such an important moment for Chicago as our city has been a sanctuary for thousands of newcomers. We are welcoming them and we will not turn our backs on those who need our help the most,” Lightfoot said in a statement, according to WMAQ-TV.

“We understand that many are fleeing violent, traumatic, or otherwise unstable environments,” the statement said. “We will respond with essential services while these individuals navigate the next steps of their journey and our community partners have been working diligently to provide a safety net.”

Lightfoot bashed Abbott for not working with her.

However, that was not the end of the story:

But lo and behold, 64 of 175 illegal immigrants sent to Chicago were soon sent to a Hampton Inn in the suburb of Burr Ridge with no notice to local officials.

“I am concerned neither the village administrator nor I were told about this,” Burr Ridge Mayor Gary Grasso said, according to WGN-TV. “We want to know: Why Burr Ridge?”

“Neither village elected officials nor staff were consulted or contacted about this decision and we are now gathering information to keep our community updated,” he said to WMAQ.

Grasso also said it was hypocritical for Lightfoot to criticize Abbott for sending illegal immigrants up north and then ship them out to his community, according to Fox News.

If Chicago wants to be a sanctuary city, and the voters keep electing a mayor who wants it to be, there is no problem. However, if Chicago claims to be a sanctuary city and then sends those seeking sanctuary to the suburbs without the knowledge or consent of the people and their leaders living there, is Chicago really a sanctuary city? How is what Lori Lightfoot doing any different than what Governor Abbott is doing (other than the fact that Governor Abbott does not claim that Texas is a sanctuary state)?

Will He Stay Out This Time?

Posted on by

According to Fox News, after the not guilty verdict in the Kate Steinle murder, federal officials are now charging Jose Ines Garcia Zarate with being a felon in possession of a firearm and ammunition, and for being an illegally present alien in possession of a firearm and ammunition. If he is convicted on either charge, he could face a maximum of ten years in jail.

The article also reports:

After Zarate’s acquittal, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement also announced last week that they planned to take Zarate into custody and remove him from the U.S. after the case was completely over.

When you consider the fact that Zarate was in the country illegally after having been deported five times. Why do we think that deporting him a sixth time will keep him out of the country? This man is a classic example of the reason we need to control our borders. We need to know who is coming into the country, what their purpose is in coming here and how long they plan to stay. Why are we putting the so-called rights of someone who is here illegally above the right to life of an American citizen?

One Way The Trump Administration Is Cutting The Cost Of Government

Posted on by

On August 3rd, The Washington Times posted an article about the cost of illegal immigration. The article pointed out that the cost of deporting all of the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants would cost nearly $125 billion. However, the cost of the government services involved in allowing them to stay would be nearly $750 billion from taxpayers over their lifetimes. This represents a major departure from the past when immigrants came to America to earn success rather than to have the country support them. So what impact has the election of President Trump had on the numbers of illegal immigrants in America?

Katie Pavlich at Townhall posted an article today reporting statistics on one aspect of illegal aliens in America.

The article reports:

The Department of Justice released new numbers Tuesday afternoon showing voluntary departures and deportations of illegal immigrants are up by 30 percent. Here are the numbers between February 1 and July 31, 2017: 

Total Orders of Removal: 49,983

Up 27.8 percent over the same time period in 2016 (39,113)

Total Orders of Removal and Voluntary Departures: 57,069

Up 30.9 percent over the same time period in 2016 (43,595)

The court system has also streamlined a number of deportation cases to final decisions. 

I am not opposed to legal immigration. Controlling our borders and controlling who is allowed to come into America is part of the responsibility of the government. It would be nice if they took that responsibility seriously.

The article states the probable reason for the change in numbers:

DOJ officials are touting the numbers as a “return to the rule of law” under the Trump administration. For months the Department has been cracking down on sanctuary cities and Homeland Security has conducted a number of ICE raids to rid communities of violent criminal aliens.

Leadership in Washington makes a difference. There are a limited number of things the President can do without Congress, but in those areas, President Trump has accomplished a number of things that will help average Americans earn more and live better. One of the major problems with illegal immigration is the downward pressure it exerts on the wages of low-skilled workers. Corporations like illegal immigration because it provides labor at a lower cost than what they would have to pay an American citizen. Corporations donate to Congressmen, and Congressmen are slow to act on the problem of illegal immigration. That is an instance where an Executive Order from the President can get something done that Congress is not interested in doing.

 

 

What Happens When You Are No Longer A Sanctuary City?

Posted on by

On Friday, Fox News posted an article about what has happened in Phoenix, Arizona, since they have dropped their sanctuary city status.

The article reports:

Bolton (Levi Bolton, executive director to the Arizona Police Association) served with Mark Spencer, who spent 25 years patrolling in Phoenix.

“When we eliminated our sanctuary policy back in 2008, we saw crime, violent and stolen vehicles fall by 25 percent,” he recalled. “We saw a 20-year low crime rate. When we were allowed and had the discretion to contact our federal immigration partners, crime fell drastically.”

According to City-Data.com, which collects data from various government agencies, from 2008 to 2009 Phoenix’s murder rate fell 27 percent, robberies by 23 percent, assault by 13 percent, burglaries by 14 percent and theft by 19 percent. The numbers for each category fell the following year as well – albeit by smaller margins.

One has to wonder why there is opposition to ending sanctuary cities when statistics show that they are more dangerous than cities where immigration laws are enforced. It also needs to be pointed out that ending sanctuary cities simply means enforcing the laws that are already on the books. One of the biggest problems with the Obama Administration was that they chose to pick and choose which laws they would enforce. We need to get back to the concept of enforcing our laws as they are written or changing them. There really is not another option.

A Problem Made Worse By Failure To Deal With Another Problem

Posted on by

Paul Mirengoff at Power Line posted an article yesterday about a problem in Boston that unfortunately has become a problem throughout the nation. The number of heroin overdoses in all fifty states has risen dramatically in recent years.

According to the Center for Disease Control website:

As heroin use has increased, so have heroin-related overdose deaths:

  • Heroin-related overdose deaths have more than quadrupled since 2010.
  • From 2014 to 2015, heroin overdose death rates increased by 20.6%, with nearly 13,000 people dying in 2015.
  • In 2015, males aged 25-44 had the highest heroin death rate at 13.2 per 100,000, which was an increase of 22.2% from 2014.

This is a nationwide problem. However, each area of the country has its unique source or the problem. In Boston, Massachusetts, the problem is leaked to the problem of illegal immigration.

The article at Power Line reports:

I want to focus on certain findings in the BRIC report regarding drug traffickers. According to the report, only 39 percent of those arrested for Class A Trafficking claimed to have been born in the United States. 26 percent claimed to have been born in Puerto Rico. Records showed, however, that 65 percent were born in a foreign country, with the Dominican Republic accounting for 84 percent of the foreign born arrestees.

The numbers add up to more than 100 percent because, in many cases, the records listed multiple places of birth.

The problem of multiple places of birth listed for the same person can be explained by the fact that identify fraud is involved in many of these arrests.

The article concludes:

It would seem, then, that there is a connection between heroin trafficking in Boston and illegal immigration. However, Steve Robinson, writing on the web page of the Howie Carr show, notes that Boston Mayor Marty Walsh offered to open City Hall as a sanctuary to illegal aliens facing deportation under the Trump administration. In addition, says Robinson, Massachusetts governor Charlie Baker has resisted President Trump’s efforts to withdraw law enforcement grants from towns and cities that refuse to cooperate with federal authorities in the enforcement of immigration laws.

Might not better cooperation with federal authorities in enforcing our immigration laws — enacted by Congress, not by President Trump — help rid Boston of some who are killing Bostonians via drug overdoses?

Why would anyone even consider a law that would allow illegal aliens dealing drugs to stay in America? Everyone who comes to America illegally has broken the law. However, not everyone who comes here illegally continues to break the law. We need to gain control of our immigration so that people who want to come here and assimilate and contribute to America can come and people who want to come here and take advantage of America’s government assistance programs will be kept out. Under our present laws, people who come here illegally are not able to legally work and sometimes resort to identity fraud in order to make a living and survive. We need to find a way to let productive people stay in the country. I would suggest that illegals be given the right to work, but be barred from voting for life. It is time to get control of our borders and to know exactly who is in America.

Americans Have Common Sense, Do Our Leaders?

Posted on by

Yesterday The Hill posted an article about sanctuary cities. There is a surprising amount of public support for President Trump’s deportation of criminal aliens.

The article reports:

The poll shows that President Trump has broad public support in his effort to crack down on sanctuary cities.

A survey from Harvard–Harris Poll provided exclusively to The Hill found that 80 percent of voters say local authorities should have to comply with the law by reporting to federal agents the illegal immigrants they come into contact with.

As it stands, hundreds of cities across the nation — many with Democratic mayors or city councils — are refusing to do so.

Trump has signed an executive order directing Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly to find ways to starve these sanctuary cities of federal funding. A Reuters analysis found the top 10 sanctuary cities in the U.S. receive $2.27 billion in federal funding for programs ranging from public health services to early childhood education.

We need to deal with our own citizens who are living in poverty before we open our borders to more dependents.

The article includes the following graph:

If we are to be a nation of laws, we need to enforce our laws.

Making Our Streets Safer

Posted on by

Yesterday The Washington Examiner posted an article about recent raids by U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement agents.

The article reports:

The 680 seized in recent sweeps by U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement agents represent just .07 percent of the 950,062 with deportation orders as of May 21, 2016.

…He  (Thomas D. Homan, currently the acting ICE director) said that ICE has custody of just 11,006, or 1 percent, of the 950,062 ordered deported.

The article includes some shocking statistics:

There are an estimated 3 million illegal immigrants with criminal records in addition to their illegal status and the administration has said it will make them a priority for removal. The numbers in the ICE answers could have adjusted but deporting criminal illegals was not a priority in the last months of the Obama administration, according to experts.

Immigration experts said that sanctuary cities are mostly to blame for the huge number of illegal immigrants with deportation orders who are not in custody.

The article explains that criminal aliens with orders to be deported are simply allowed to go free–they are either not required to check in with authorities or they are not complying with that requirement.

To those who are protesting the deportation of these criminals, would you be so willing to let American citizen criminals roam the streets in these numbers?

Let’s See How Serious Congress Is About Protecting Americans

Posted on by

On Wednesday Breitbart.com posted an article about an amendment Representative Kevin Yoder introduced to the 2016 Homeland Security Appropriations Bill. The bill has been passed in the House Appropriations Committee. Let’s see how far it goes after that.

The article reports:

The revision serves to withhold funding from cities with sanctuary policies and inhibit enforcement of immigration law.

Thousands of Americans fall victim to crimes by illegal aliens each year that could be prevented, such as the July 1 death of Kate Steinle in San Francisco. Her murder may have been prevented had the “sanctuary city” not released a five-time deported, seven-time convicted felon back out onto American streets.

Steinle’s killer made a jailhouse confession in which he indicated that he chose San Francisco for its lax immigration enforcement.

…The House Appropriations Committee is also pushing to keep U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement from releasing criminal illegal aliens from custody before they are deported, the Associated Press reported.

Some 1,400 criminal illegal aliens released under the Obama administration in the 2014 fiscal year committed additional crimes, Breitbart News reported Tuesday.