About half of all Americans now live in under sanctuary policies favoring criminal aliens.
That's according to the Federation for American Immigration Reform. Spokesman Ira Mehlman says the number of sanctuary states and municipalities has more than doubled to 564 under President Trump.
“This is a way for local politicians to show their displeasure with U.S. immigration enforcement, but at the same time they're endangering public safety and putting everybody at risk,” he says.
California, Illinois and New York consider themselves sanctuary states, but Texas went the other direction with SB4.
“Even in places like Houston which tend to want to grant sanctuary, they understand that under the laws of the state of Texas they could potentially lose needed state funding,” says Mehlman.
FAIR says it's up to Congress to follow Texas' lead.
“Local politicians who make these decisions based on political pressure are never there to look the families of victims in the eye and to explain to them why they thought it was more important to protect criminal aliens than it was to protect the safety of somebody's loved one.”