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President Donald Trump said on Thursday that he was working on documents about the termination of sanctuary cities in the United States, threatening to use federal funding as a tool to shut them down for good.
His newest announcement echoes a promise he made on the 2024 campaign trail to end sanctuary cities.
“No more Sanctuary Cities! They protect the Criminals, not the Victims. They are disgracing our Country, and are being mocked all over the World,” he wrote on Truth Social.
States like California, Massachusetts, New York, and Washington are among those that offer sanctuary state policies for illegal aliens in the United States. Per The New York Times, more liberal cities, like San Francisco and Los Angeles, actively prohibit their cities from using local funding to enforce immigration law.
These kinds of policies appear to be what Trump is targeting.
“Working on papers to withhold all Federal Funding for any City or State that allows these Death Traps to exist!!!” Trump added in his Thursday statement.
Last year, the president vowed to take aim at sanctuary cities among the Biden-era immigration crisis, which facilitated the entrance of millions of unvetted illegal migrants.
“As soon as I take office, we will immediately surge federal law enforcement to every city that is failing, which is a lot of them, to turn over criminal aliens,” he said during a rally in North Carolina.
Amid a nationwide deportation operation, President Trump has been making big strides in achieving this goal, but sanctuary cities have posed a problem when or if they decide to decline assisting federal deportation efforts.
To target this problem, U.S. Attorney General Pamela Bondi announced in February that she would pause federal funding on sanctuary cities to ensure they were in compliance with the law on this matter.
“Consistent with applicable statutes, regulations, court orders, and terms, the Department of Justice shall pause the distribution of all funds until a review has been completed, terminate any agreements that are in violation of law or are the source of waste, fraud, or abuse, and initiate clawback or recoupment procedures, where appropriate,” Bondi’s order read, as reported by RSBN.
It is unclear at this time whether the president’s current draft documents targeting sanctuary cities will be issued as an executive order.
