Study: Sanctuary policies protect illegals from terror hotbeds

(Wikimedia Commons)

A new study found that American states and cities with sanctuary policies are blocking the deportation of illegal immigrants from countries designated by the State Department as sponsors of terror.

Law-enforcement agencies and jails refused to honor 44 immigration holds on such immigrants for a
27-month period ending Dec. 31, 2017, concluded the study by the Immigration Reform Law Institute, the Daily Caller reported.

Of the protected 44 illegals from state-sponsored countries, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, deemed 39 of them as level 1 and 2 threats.

Offenses by the 39 included homicide, fraud, kidnapping, burglary, sexual assault and aggravated assault.

"Sanctuary laws are no longer a theoretical faculty lounge debate, they are causing very real threats to our safety as individuals and as a nation," Dale L. Wilcox, executive director of IRLI, said in a statement.

"Already there are innocent victims who have lost their lives as a result of sanctuary laws that defy common sense."

California alone refused to turn over 27 illegal aliens from state-sponsored countries during the time period of the study. Washington state had eight, and Iowa and Minnesota two. Nebraska, Texas, Massachusetts, Illinois and Arizona each had one detainer.

Wilcox warned that if "one of these aliens shielded from the law commits an act of mass terrorism, the politicians and activists who push for sanctuary laws will have a lot to answer for."

The Daily Caller noted that, mostly in response to President Trump's immigration policy, a growing number of liberal-leaning states and jurisdictions have enacted policies that hinder ICE's operations.

More than 300 communities have adopted sanctuary city policies in the United States, including the state of California.

Last June, WND reported that acting as a "sanctuary city" for illegal immigrants, New York City released 440 "dangerous" criminal offenders sought for deportation over a period of just three months.

The San Diego Union-Tribune reported in May 2018 that in the first four and a half months of California's sanctuary law, the San Diego County Sheriff's Department released 349 people who were wanted by immigration officials without alerting the federal agency responsible for deportations.

That amounted to a little more than half of the 605 people the agency requested, according to a spokeswoman for the Sheriff's Department.

ICE officials, WND reported in December 2017, pointed out that since 2014, 10,000 criminal aliens released by sanctuary policies subsequently committed new crimes after their release.