Sanctuary cities across the United States are shielding illegal aliens from deportation despite those foreign nationals being from terrorist-sponsored countries, a new study finds.

For 27 months, there were about 44 illegal aliens from terrorist-sponsored countries who were shielded from deportation by sanctuary city laws, the Immigration Reform Law Institute (IRLI) reveals. Those terrorist-sponsored countries, designated as such by the State Department, include Iran, Sudan, Syria, and North Korea. The vast majority, nearly 90 percent, of these nationals are from Iran.

The IRLI investigation found that the sanctuary state of California leads the country in helping illegal aliens from terrorist-sponsored countries evade deportation. Over more than a two-year period, California failed to turn 27 illegal aliens from terrorist-sponsored countries over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents for deportation out of the U.S.

Washington state, likewise, shielded eight illegal aliens from terrorist-sponsored countries from deportation during the same time period, as well as two illegal aliens in each Iowa and Minnesota. Sanctuary cities in states like Arizona, Illinois, Massachusetts, Nebraska, and Texas also refused to help deport some illegal aliens from terrorist-sponsored countries.

Exclusive–Study: Over 10K Illegal Aliens in U.S. from Terrorist-Sponsored Countrieshttps://t.co/ClCikUR1Jq — John Binder 👽 (@JxhnBinder) April 12, 2019

“Sanctuary laws are no longer a theoretical faculty lounge debate, they are causing very real threats to our safety as individuals and as a nation,” IRLI Executive Director Dale Wilcox said in a statement.

“Already there are innocent victims who have lost their lives as a result of sanctuary laws that defy common sense,” Wilcox said. “If one of these aliens shielded from the law commits an act of mass terrorism, the politicians and activists who push for sanctuary laws will have a lot to answer for.”

In total, about 25 sanctuary cities across a multitude of states helped shield illegal aliens from terrorist-sponsored countries between the end of 2014 and 2017. This process often entails an illegal alien being taken into local 0r state custody for a crime and rather than turning the national over to ICE agents, local authorities release the illegal alien into the public.

Of the 44 illegal aliens from terrorist-sponsored countries who have been shielded from deportation, 39 of them were classified by ICE agents as being “level 1” and “level 2” threats — this indicates these nationals have been accused of crimes such as homicide, kidnapping, sexual assault, robbery, aggravated assault, possessing drugs, burglary, or fraud.

A recent IRLI investigation revealed that there are more than 10,000 illegal aliens living in the U.S. who are from countries that are designated by the State Department as state sponsors of terrorism.

Specifically, more than 6,000 — or 61 percent — of the 10,000 illegal aliens are from Iran, while 20 percent are from Syria, 18 percent are from Sudan, and less than one percent came illegally from North Korea.

As Breitbart News has chronicled, the Diversity Visa Lottery — which imports more than 50,000 random foreign nationals to the country every year through a random drawing — has brought nearly 30,000 legal immigrants to the U.S. in the last decade from countries designated as state sponsors of terrorism. Roughly 30 percent of all Visa Lottery immigrants who have been brought to the country in the last five years have come from countries that sponsor terrorism.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.