An estimated 8 million illegal aliens live in so-called sanctuary cities and states across the United States that refuse to cooperate with federal immigration enforcement agents, an estimate from the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) indicates.
The estimate from CIS relies on a previous analysis from the center that approximated that the total illegal alien population present in the United States is roughly 14 million, with CIS positing that over half of the illegal alien population resides in sanctuary jurisdictions.
“Although there is much imprecision in the data, the bottom line is that close to eight million illegal aliens, equaling 56 percent of the estimated nationwide total, live in sanctuary jurisdictions,” CIS says in its analysis.
The center also details the specific sanctuary states and cities, along with the estimates of how many illegal aliens live in each. CIS estimates that a whopping 3 million illegal aliens reside in California while about 868,000 are believed to live in New York state. Just over half a million illegal aliens are believed to live in Illinois with another 372,000 believed to live in Washington state.
Some states, CIS says, are not sanctuary states, but have multiple sanctuary cities within their borders. “Enforcement-minded states need not tolerate local sanctuaries, as the high-immigration states of Texas and Florida already demonstrate,” the Center for Immigration Studies asserts. “Those two states have no local sanctuaries because they ban them statewide. Every state should follow their lead. Eliminating sanctuaries is one of the most important steps that states can take to assist the Trump administration with enforcement.”
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Sanctuary states, however, could agitate attempts by the incoming Trump administration to enforce federal immigration law. Multiple Democrats from sanctuary jurisdictions have already indicated that they will not comply with Trump’s deportation efforts, despite broad support for the plan from the American public.
Massachusetts Governor Maura Healy, a Democrat, said that she would refuse to allow state police to cooperate with federal immigration enforcement operations. Federal agents based in Boston arrested three illegal aliens who have each been charged with or convicted of raping children.
In Colorado, Denver Mayor Mike Johnston, a Democrat, indicated that he may even attempt to use the city’s police to prevent federal law enforcement from entering the city to carry out deportations. His comment came as an illegal alien was arrested after allegedly raping the 14-year-old daughter of his boss. The 20-year-old illegal alien and Venezuelan national is believed to have illegally entered the United States under the Biden-Harris administration.
Tom Homan, whom President-elect Donald Trump named as his border czar, blasted the governors and mayors of sanctuary jurisdictions, also pledging to deport illegal aliens no matter where in the United States they reside.
“For any governor or mayor who doesn’t want public safety threats taken out of their communities, he should resign your office, because your number-one responsibility is to protect those communities,” Homan charged. “We have ways of finding people … They will be arrested, they’ll be detained, and they’ll be removed.”
“We’ll move them to a state where we can detain them. There is plenty of sheriffs across this country who are willing to give us empty beds. They want the funding, and we can put them in jail all across the country,” he went on to add.
