Biden’s ‘Sanctuary Country’ Orders Jeopardize America and Its Citizens

Commentary

May 10, 2021

By Dale Wilcox

Upon reflection on Joe Biden’s first 100 days in office, it is difficult to gauge which of his many executive orders and directives have done the most damage to the country. Given their likely long-term physical harm to Americans, his orders restricting Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) ability to deport criminal illegal aliens may prove to be the deadliest. These orders must be opposed, from the floor of Congress to the ballot boxes to our courts of law.

It is important to understand what this administration has done and why it is so dangerous. In February, the Biden-controlled ICE Director Tae Johnson instructed his agents not to pursue the arrest and deportation of illegal aliens until they have been convicted of aggravated felonies against Americans. Crimes that fall under this category include rape, murder, sexual abuse of a minor, and child pornography.     

This may not seem like an earth-shaking order to those unfamiliar with minutiae of law enforcement, but it changes the landscape considerably. The order, combined with a temporary ban on all deportation that has been challenged in court, effectively accomplishes the radical left’s cry to “Abolish ICE.” The agency may still exist, but its mission to enforce the law as relates to removing those here in violation of our immigration laws has been gutted by this administration.

What will America look like with a neutered ICE? By setting an artificially high bar for deportations, illegal aliens with previous, lesser criminal convictions will be released and allowed to remain in the country. Nearly 90 percent of those previously targeted by ICE for deportation will stay.

Compare this to the Trump-era ICE. For all the left’s demagoguery of ICE agents as jack-booted thugs with an animus toward Latinos, the data says something different. The agency was highly effective at removing dangerous criminal aliens from communities. Those dangers to our society will now roam free, and only after committing a violent felony against a victim will deportation even be considered. Do you feel safer yet in Biden’s more “welcoming” America?  

This will take the “sanctuary” concept popular in many big cities and expand it nationwide. We have already seen the destructive effects of sanctuary laws and how every argument for them does not hold up to scrutiny.  

Innocent people are regularly attacked or killed in sanctuary communities by foreign nationals who should have been deported. The argument that immigrant communities are safer under sanctuary laws is demonstrably false. Immigrants are often the victims of criminal aliens. If immigrants know that those in their community who commit crimes will not be deported, how likely are they to report them to police? Sanctuary policies are not pro-immigrant or even pro-illegal alien. The only groups that benefit from sanctuary policies are criminal illegal aliens and the politicians who pander to the immigrant community by advocating for such policies.

Given the tidal wave of destructive policies that have come from this administration since January, combined with the lack of scrutiny of them from our feckless, hyper-partisan establishment media, it would be easy for many Americans to lose hope and accept these revolutionary changes as a fait accompli. I strongly encourage you not to succumb to those impulses. That fact is that we are capable of winning, and in many cases we already are winning.

Last week my organization, the Immigration Reform Law Institute, scored a significant victory in the fight against sanctuary policies. Indiana’s Lake Superior Court struck down key parts of an ordinance that the City of East Chicago, Indiana, had enacted to protect illegal aliens, even ones with criminal records, from federal immigration law enforcement. Working with the Bopp Law firm in Indiana, we argued, and the court found, that the ordinance violates several Indiana statutes prohibiting governmental bodies in the state from refusing to cooperate with federal immigration law enforcement. Last November the same court agreed with us and ruled against a similar ordinance in nearby Gary, Ind., that prioritized illegal aliens over the city’s legal residents.      

There are many other cities, counties and states with similar sanctuary policies, so there is much more work to be done. Part of that work is to cut through the anti-borders propaganda on sanctuary policies and oppose them in your community. Joe Biden and his fellow travelers care little about the safety of your community, only to stack the deck in their favor to win future elections. Now is the time to oppose sanctuary policies, or live with the consequences.

Dale L. Wilcox is executive director and general counsel at the Immigration Reform Law Institute, a public interest law firm working to defend the rights and interests of the American people from the negative effects of mass migration.

Also published at: Dale Wilcox, Biden’s ‘Sanctuary Country’ Orders Jeopardize America and Its Citizens, American Greatness, May 9, 2021.

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