Photo: Alamy
California Rep. Kevin Kiley (R) has introduced legislation into Congress this month that would ban sanctuary cities nationwide in what he is calling the “No Sanctuary for Criminals Act.”
The bill, which was introduced last week, takes a swing at blue states like California that have provided “sanctuary” for individuals who have come into the United States illegally.
In an official statement, Rep. Kiley explained, “California’s sanctuary state law has unleashed completely avoidable tragedy across the state. Sanctuary policies are designed not to protect all immigrants or even undocumented immigrants, rather, they specifically protect individuals both in this country illegally and who have committed crimes while here. My No Sanctuary for Criminals Act enacts a nationwide prohibition on these dangerous policies.”
According to the Center for Immigration Studies, a sanctuary state is defined as a city, county, or state that has regulations, ordinances, resolutions, policies, or other practices that:
“obstruct immigration enforcement and shield criminals from ICE — either by refusing to or prohibiting agencies from complying with ICE detainers, imposing unreasonable conditions on detainer acceptance, denying ICE access to interview incarcerated aliens, or otherwise impeding communication or information exchanges between their personnel and federal immigration officers.”
Since Joe Biden took office in 2021, the U.S. southern border has remained catastrophically unsecured, facilitating a flood of illegal immigration. President Trump has postulated that as many as 15 million migrants are on track to enter the country.
Rep. Kiley pointed out that more than 200 cities, counties, and states nationwide have prevented Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and law enforcement from doing their job and deporting illegal migrants, “even those who have been arrested” and “those who have committed violent crimes.”
He continued, “The refusal of jurisdictions to cooperate with ICE has led to thousands of criminal aliens evading deportation – in Fiscal Year 2017, over 8,000 criminal aliens were released despite an ICE retainer due to sanctuary policies, and ICE was only able to apprehend and arrest 6% of those individuals.”
His “No Sanctuary for Criminals Act of 2023” would end sanctuary policies by forbidding “local and state jurisdictions from refusing to cooperate with federal immigration authorities through amending Section 642 of the Illegal Immigration and Reform Responsibility Act of 1996.”
