The City of San Francisco & the State of California Sue Trump Administration Over Sanctuary City Policy

On July 25 Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that jurisdictions that refuse to comply with federal immigration law, sanctuary cities, would lose federal funding beginning later this year, and that their leaders could potentially face criminal prosecution for human smuggling and trafficking.

Specifically, the federal government may deny either the municipality’s Edward Bryne Memorial Justice Assistance Grants, or JAG grants if they fail to:

Comply with federal law—they must not prevent local law enforcement from sharing prisoner’s immigration information with ICE. Allow ICE agents into detention centers. Give ICE a 48-hour notice before releasing anyone for whom ICE requested a detainer.

To many Americans, especially those on the right, this seems like a commonsense measure: why should the federal government shell out billions of dollars to cities who are, in effect, in open revolt against them?

But not everyone sees it that way: the State of California, and the City of San Francisco are challenging the legality of denying said grants for their refusal to uphold the law.

Yes that’s right: San Fransisco is suing the federal government for its right to ignore immigration law, and not suffer any financial penalties—they want to have their cake and eat it too.

The lawsuit was announced by San Francisco’s Attorney, Dennis Herrera, at their City Hall. California’s Attorney General Xavier Becerra was present, and plans to file the State’s lawsuit on August 14.

Dennis Herrera said that “The president is bent on trying to vilify immigrants and punish cities that prioritize real, effective public safety over splitting up hardworking families,” and that the withholding of federal grants was “unconstitutional” because it threatens to “harm a range of law enforcement initiatives across California.”

Whether or not the Trump administration’s actions are unconstitutional is a matter to be decided by the courts—although the assertion that cities have a constitutional right to ignore federal law at their discretion is prima facie absurd.

The more interesting claim made by San Francisco (due to its hypocritical nature) is that they’re making the country a safer place by protecting illegal immigrants from deportation.

I have no doubt that they actually believe this: most liberals I know are, by nature, very kind people. But they’re also naive. The fact is that harboring illegal immigrants does not make our communities safer—it is quite the opposite.

To begin with, this question can be statistically settled, and it has been settled: sanctuary cities have higher crime rates than do cities that uphold immigration laws. This isn’t up for debate, it’s a fact.

This shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone anyways: it is a well-documented fact that illegal immigrants commit crimes at a far higher frequency than do American citizens. For example, 40% of all federal crimes are committed by illegal immigrants (many of which are drug-related), and 70% of all federal crimes occur in states that border Mexico (coincidentally those with the highest number of illegal aliens).

I won’t bore you to tears with statistics (although I could), instead suffice it to say that illegal immigrants do commit crimes, and that these crimes are entirely preventable, since they shouldn’t be in the country anyways.