Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel begs President-elect Trump for leniency.

Chicago is one of the best places to live in America if you’re one of the millions of illegal aliens present in the country – and free-spending, lawbreaking Mayor Rahm Emanuel is trying his best to keep it that way.

Emanuel (D), who used to be a congressman and then President Obama’s chief of staff, dropped by Trump Tower in New York on Wednesday to urge President-elect Donald Trump to abandon his campaign promise to crack down on sanctuary cities.

“I also spoke out strongly about what it means to be a sanctuary city who will support and secure the people who are here, like my grandfather who came to the city of Chicago as a 13-year old 100 years ago,” said Emanuel who actually has no real bargaining power in the equation because he’s on the wrong side of the law.

“Chicago was a sanctuary city for my grandfather. His grandson today is the mayor of this city, which is a testament to the strength of the values and ideals of America.”

Emanuel, of course, is leaving out the values that make Americans inclined to support the rule of law and therefore oppose illegal entry and visa-overstaying by foreigners.

Emanuel is a strident, in-your-face supporter of the sanctuary city movement that gave illegal aliens permission to rob, rape, and murder Americans. Cheered on by the Left, sanctuary cities hinder immigration enforcement and shield illegal aliens from federal officials as a matter of policy. They ignore immigration detainer forms which ask them to retain illegals in their custody after they would otherwise release them so Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) can take custody of them.

These sanctuary cities really ought to be called traitor cities because they are in open rebellion against the United States. Cities are creatures of the states in which they reside and under the Guarantee Clause of the Constitution the U.S. government is required to make sure that states maintain a “Republican Form of Government.” (The same clause also requires the U.S. to “protect each of them [i.e. the states] against Invasion[.]” Perhaps Attorney General nominee Jeff Sessions could have his staff look into invoking the “Invasion” portion of the clause.)

These sanctuary cities may as well be flying the Confederate battle flag at city hall in their modern-day campaign of massive resistance against federal immigration law.

Bearing an uncanny resemblance to the Confederates who resisted federal authority and declared war on the United States 155 years ago, or the neo-Confederates in Southern states who resisted federal authority during the civil rights era, Democratic lawmakers and left-wing activists have been working together for decades to create large pockets of immigration anarchy in the United States where the law cannot easily be enforced.

The three criteria for a republican form of government as described in the Guarantee Clause are popular rule, absence of a monarch, and the rule of law. Immigration is a federal responsibility and sanctuary city policies undermine legitimate federal authority and are contrary to the rule of law.

Moreover, actively interfering with immigration enforcement could constitute obstruction of justice and could violate the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act which contains provisions making it unlawful to “harbor” an illegal alien.

The federal government needs to start arresting local officials like Emanuel for blocking the enforcement of federal immigration law. Those who enable the lawlessness of sanctuary cities deserve to be behind bars.

There are hundreds of sanctuary jurisdictions – including a few states – across the country that hinder the federal government’s immigration law enforcement efforts. Some left-wingers use the dreadful euphemism “civil liberties safe zones” to describe them. The phrase blurs the distinction between citizens and non-citizens by implying illegal aliens somehow possess a civil right to be present in the U.S.

The nation got to this point after decades of concerted collusion by radical George Soros-funded groups like the ACLU to get localities to pledge to frustrate or violate laws that protect U.S. national security. Leftist agitation has so intimidated Americans that many refuse to say the phrase illegal alien, preferring to go with undocumented immigrant or other politically correct terms less likely to generate offense.

Of course left-wingers like Emanuel and New York mayor Bill de Blasio (D) and Los Angeles mayors Eric Garcetti (D), both of whom have also recently met with the president-elect, only support the “values and ideals” that advance their side’s perverted vision of what America should be.

Since the Nov. 8 election, many mayors across the country have thrown their lot in with street gangs, criminals, and those who burden the public purse by saying they will fight Trump’s crackdown on sanctuary cities.

Chicago’s Emanuel was one of the first big city mayors to promise resistance to Trump in the days following the election. Among other mayors vowing defiance are: Bill de Blasio of New York; Marty Walsh (D) of Boston; Jim Kenney (D) of Philadelphia; Muriel Bowser (D) of Washington, D.C.; Stephanie Rawlings-Blake (D) of Baltimore; Eric Garcetti of Los Angeles; Ed Lee (D) of San Francisco; Libby Schaaf (D) of Oakland, Calif.; Tom Butt (D) of Richmond, Calif.; Ed Murray (D) of Seattle; Michael Hancock (D) of Denver; and Betsy Hodges (D) of Minneapolis.

Emanuel’s Chicago happens to be one of the five best places to live in America if you’re an illegal alien, according to Bob Dane, executive director of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR). The other four places on Dane’s list are: New Haven, Conn.; Montgomery County, Md.; all of California; and all of Washington State.

Because Chicago is a sanctuary city, “You won’t be asked any questions if you keep out of trouble but should you get jailed, no one will check your immigration status even when you’re in custody,” he writes. Mayor Emanuel will “do what he can locally to continue the president’s agenda of dismantling of immigration enforcement.”

Dane adds, “Of course you’ll be expected to vote for all these folks once they figure out a way to make you legal but you’ll get used to it, quid-pro-quo voting is a Chicago-style tradition.”

Chicago, well, actually the State of Illinois, showers taxpayer-funded benefits on its illegal alien residents. Immigration status is not checked when someone applies for supplement food assistance under the Women, Infants & Children (WIC) program, the All Kids medical care for children program, public K-12 education including free school lunch and breakfast programs, and under Head Start (preschool services).

An old 2007 study by FAIR found that illegals living in the Land of Lincoln cost state taxpayers “more than $3.5 billion per year for education, medical care and incarceration,” which represents about $695 for every Illinois household headed by a U.S.-born resident.

Immigration status is not considered in the provision of emergency healthcare services, including end-stage kidney disease services, and for pregnancy care.

Among the top 25 counties in the U.S. with the highest illegal alien populations, just five don’t offer public healthcare programs for illegals.

Cook County, Ill., which includes Chicago, is one of the 20 counties on the list that does offer care. It has an estimated illegal alien population of 323,000, and 20,000 of them a year are treated under a county healthcare program. Additionally, states are allowed to extend Medicaid eligibility to illegal aliens, and 16 have created programs covering illegals.

Emanuel is so determined to fork over tax dollars to illegals that he’s moving forward with creating a municipal identification card to open government coffers to those who have no legal right to be in this country.

“Chicago is and has been a city that welcomes everyone, and an individual’s background should never be a barrier to participating in the economic, social or cultural life of Chicago,” Emanuel said in October. “With this program, we ensure that all Chicago residents have the identification they need to access vital services.”

Alderman Ameya Pawar (D) hailed the planned ID card because it will “provide our undocumented and homeless neighbors with the needed identification to access critical city services and cultural resources.”

Alderman Danny Solis (D) said the ID will help many Chicago residents. “All residents of Chicago, regardless of their immigration status, will feel safe and secure and [the card will] give residents access to services they need to contribute to our great city.”

In September, Emanuel and some aldermen proposed expanding the protections that Chicago provides illegal aliens. According to Ted Cox at DNAinfo, the “Welcoming City” ordinance “would outlaw verbal abuse aimed at undocumented immigrants based on their race or citizenship, as well as banning threats made against them to reveal their undocumented status to federal immigration authorities.”

Seemi Choudry, director of the Mayor’s Office of New Americans in Chicago, said the expanded protections are intended to “make the city safer and more attractive for immigrant communities” and protect their “respect and dignity.”

The other four cities on Dane’s list bend over backwards to accommodate illegal aliens.

In 2007 New Haven, Conn., beat Chicago to the punch, becoming the first place in America to offer ID cards to its residents “regardless of age or immigration status.” The ID “has embedded holograms so that no one can ever steal your identity,” Dane notes.

In Montgomery County, Md., Casa De Maryland case workers help illegals to find jobs and “an IRS-issued taxpayer identification number because, of course, you’re here illegally and not eligible for a real Social Security number.”

California rolls out the red carpet for illegal aliens which helps explain why close to a quarters of all illegals in the U.S. live there. The state spends $21.5 billion a year on illegal alien health care, education, welfare, other state benefits, and criminal justice. This works out to $2,438 for every California native-born household. And illegals get in-state tuition rates in what Dane calls “the Dream State for Illegal Aliens.”

Washington, he explains, “accepts Mexican Matrícula Consular ID cards as proof of identification,” unconcerned with FBI and Department of Justice warnings that the cards can be utilized by criminal and terrorists.

It’s hard to say exactly how much sanctuary jurisdictions like Chicago spend on illegals because they tend not to make such figures easily available.

But because of a landmark 2013 study by the Heritage Foundation, we know that across the country:

In 2010, the average unlawful immigrant household received around $24,721 in government benefits and services while paying some $10,334 in taxes. This generated an average annual fiscal deficit (benefits received minus taxes paid) of around $14,387 per household. This cost had to be borne by U.S. taxpayers.

Those figures were based on the calculation that “all unlawful immigrant households together have an aggregate annual deficit of around $54.5 billion.” The aggregate annual deficit for all unlawful immigrant households “equals the total benefits and services received by all unlawful immigrant households minus the total taxes paid by those households.”

The Heritage report, which was vigorously attacked by the Left and by open-borders groups on the Right, explained that unlike lawful immigrants, illegal aliens do not have access to means-tested welfare, Social Security, or Medicare but they do take in government benefits and services. For example, children in illegal alien households receive heavily subsidized public education. Many illegals have U.S.-born children and they are eligible for the full range of government welfare and medical benefits. And illegals use the roads, parks, sewage systems, police and fire protection in the communities where they live.

Although open-borders propaganda typically claims that illegal aliens are hardworking and industrious, among illegal alien households with children, 87 percent accept benefits from one or more welfare programs, compared to just 52 percent of native households. Many illegals are unemployable because they don’t have the skills needed for the jobs available.

But these sobering statistics are mere details to Rahm Emanuel and Bill de Blasio and all other big-city Democrats.

They need illegal aliens in order to stay electorally competitive (and mow their lawns and clean their swimming pools) so they’re desperately hoping President-elect Trump will throw them a lifeline by betraying his own supporters.

If Trump wants a second term in the Oval Office, he’ll tell Emanuel where to go.