Chicago will remain a sanctuary city despite President-elect Donald Trump's promise to withhold federal funds from municipalities that protect undocumented immigrants from deportation, Mayor Rahm Emanuel said Sunday in a statement.

President-elect Donald Trump, who ran as a law and order candidate, has had the legal gauntlet thrown down before him by Chicago Mayor and former Obama White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel. Emanuel and his lawbreaking brethren have pledged that despite the election results and the law, their cities will remain sanctuary cities:

Emanuel's announcement follows statements on Friday by Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, New York Mayor Bill DeBlasio and San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee that they would not alter policies that restrict their cities' cooperation with U.S. immigration authorities. Trump during an interview that aired Sunday on CBS' 60 Minutes said he would "immediately" deport up to 3 million immigrants who are "criminal and have criminal records," citing "gang members, drug dealers." Said Trump: "We are getting them out of the country, or we are going to incarcerate."…. In 1985, then-Mayor Harold Washington signed a sanctuary city policy which prohibited city agencies from asking people about their immigration status though the Chicago Police Department does run background checks on criminal suspects. In a 2012 appearance at a Little Village school, Emanuel told reporters that the police department is not an "adjunct for the immigration service." "We're not going to turn people over to ICE" -- the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency," Emanuel said according to a Tribune report on the 2012 event.

That is exactly the policy that got Kate Steinle murdered by an illegal alien in San Francisco and Jamiel Shaw Jr. killed in Los angles, just two of many. Only in the fundamentally transformed America of President Obama could the former police chief of San Francisco, the city where Kate Steinle was murdered by an illegal alien given sanctuary, herself a supporter of sanctuary cities, be the short list for the next head of the U.S. Border Patrol. As Fox News reported:

A former San Francisco police chief and vocal supporter of a sanctuary cities policy is on a short list of candidates to become the new chief of the Border Patrol, according to sources. As police chief, Heather Fong shielded illegal immigrants, including aliens who committed crimes, from deportation. In contrast, it is the job of the U.S. Border Patrol to catch and deport all illegal immigrants, including those with a criminal history…. During her five years as the chief of SFPD, Fong refused to cooperate with ICE, telling reporters in November 2008, "We do not cooperate with ICE when they go out for enforcement of immigration violations of the law." A few months earlier, she appeared in a public service campaign telling illegal immigrants they're welcome in the city. In promoting San Francisco's sanctuary city policy on TV, radio, posters and brochures in five languages, Fong said illegal immigrants had nothing to fear under her watch. "San Francisco is committed to providing safe access to public services to our communities," she said.

Except for American citizens like Kate Steinle, the young lady shot by illegal immigrant Juan Francisco Lopez Sanchez, a seven-time felon who had been deported five times, only to return to San Francisco’s welcoming arms. In local custody, he was released by Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi, who thankfully was just thrown out by voters. Mirkarimi was implementing the San Francisco policy of not notifying federal authorities of such releases. Heather Fong supports this policy wholeheartedly.

Donald Trump got into trouble for saying our open borders policy allows Mexican criminals free access to the United States. Yet criminals like Juan Francisco Lopez Sanchez do come across and Heather Fong as head of the Border Patrol would be unlikely to stem the tide. Rather she would probably be standing on the border passing out a map of sanctuary cities.

Being a sanctuary city is illegal. State and local authorities cannot refuse to enforce federal law. Of course, who is going to call sanctuary cities to account when the President of the United States refuses to enforce our immigration laws. As Investor’s Business Daily has noted, President Obama himself ordered those in charge of border security to obey his executive orders on amnesty and not our immigration laws:

If President Obama, who has warned ICE agents of consequences if they do their job, had a son, he might look like Jamiel Shaw Jr., a young African-American killed by an illegal alien who shouldn't have been here. Shaw was a Los Angeles high school star dreaming of a good life ahead when he was gunned down on March 2, 2008, while walking home. He was picked at random, police said, possibly as part of a gang loyalty test for the illegal alien who shot him. The sanctuary policies that led to the murder of Shaw are now full-blown federal policies under Obama. "We're not in the business of deporting millions of people or of breaking up families," he says. We're also not in the business of deporting criminal illegal aliens…. …President Obama was telling employees at Immigration and Customs Enforcement that they had better enforce his executive amnesty orders or else. Speaking at a Miami town hall meeting sponsored by MSNBC and Telemundo, Obama said "there may be (an) ICE official or Border Patrol agent not paying attention to our new directives. If somebody's working for ICE . . . and they don't follow the policy, there's going to be consequences to it."

Well, there have been consequences to your open border policy and sanctuary cities, President Obama. You and the liberal big city mayors that have followed your lead are protecting criminal aliens that prey on American citizens and destroy American lives. You and your ilk insist on protecting and releasing dangerous criminals en masse to the streets of American cities. As Judicial Watch reports:

… a new study reveals that hundreds of sanctuary cities nationwide released thousands of criminal aliens from jail rather than turn them over to federal authorities for deportation…. … in less than a year 340 sanctuary cities, counties and states around the U.S. released 9,295 alien offenders that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was seeking to deport. More than half had significant prior criminal histories and 600 were released at least twice by jurisdictions that protect criminal aliens from deportation by refusing to comply with ICE detainers. The figures were made public recently by the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), a nonprofit dedicated to researching the consequences of legal and illegal immigration into the United States…. Of those still at large, 1,377 (20%) had another criminal arrest following the one that resulted in the original ICE detainer. This is why a violent criminal, Francisco Javier Chavez, is on the loose. In August 2015 he was arrested for beating his girlfriend’s 2-year-old daughter and, despite an extensive criminal record that includes felony drug and drunk-driving convictions, a California sheriff’s department ignored an ICE detainer and released him.

Liberals who fear families will be torn apart by deportation of illegal aliens, particularly those who have criminal records, care not for the families of Kate Steinle and Jamiel Shaw Jr. and countless other victims of open borders and sanctuary cities. Mayors like Rahm Emanuel are sworn to uphold the law, and those include the laws of the United States. Arguably, they are accessories to the murder of American citizens. Those who say illegal aliens still have rights forget that Kate Steinle and Janiel Shaw Jr. had rights too, including the right not to be murdered.

Daniel John Sobieski is a freelance writer whose pieces have appeared in Investor’s Business Daily, Human Events, Reason Magazine and the Chicago Sun-Times among other publications.