New study continues to debunk Trump's lie that so-called sanctuary cities are dangerous

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The Trump administration has long been targeting cities with so-called “sanctuary” policies based on the claim that limiting cooperation with the out-of-control Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency endangers communities, from unlawfully blocking federal funds to threatening to detain anyone within their sight. But that claim has always been a lie, as past research has already proven—and now new data from a leading university continues to confirm.

“Cities that have adopted ‘sanctuary’ policies did not record an increase in crime as a result of their decision to limit cooperation with federal immigration authorities, according to a new Stanford University report,” The Washington Post reports. “The data show that the policies were effective at limiting deportations of nonviolent offenders but did not result in higher crime rates in those cities.”

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Immigrant rights advocates have long noted that so-called “sanctuary cities,” or “safe cities,” actually follow the law (something impeached president Donald Trump might want to do on DACA, perhaps) by refusing to hold immigrants for ICE unless it has a judicial warrant. Courts have already ruled over the years that local police holding immigrants past their release date just so deportation agents can come get them is unconstitutional, and some localities have had to pay big-time for doing so.

The truth is, “[t]here’s no evidence sanctuary policies harm public safety,” Stanford University researcher David K. Hausman told The Post, “and there’s no evidence those policies increase crime.” And just as importantly, safe city policies help keep families together, with the research showing “deportations decreased by about one-third overall in jurisdictions that adopted sanctuary policies,” the report continued. 

But that safe city policies don’t lead to more crime is something that shouldn’t be a surprise to the administration, Hausman added: “The government itself keeps the data I rely on, and if the administration had looked at its own data, it would know these claims are not true,” he told The Post.

The findings from Stanford University also come right as the administration is corruptly using federal agencies like ICE against areas of the country he doesn’t like for the sole purpose of his reelection, sweeping up immigrants in California and New York, and plastering anti-immigrant propaganda on billboards in the swing state of Pennsylvania. Just some truly gross, awful, and corrupt-as-fuck shit.

“U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) maintains that cooperation with local law enforcement is essential to protecting public safety,” an agency spokesperson claimed to The Post, “and the agency aims to work cooperatively with local jurisdictions to ensure that criminal aliens are not released into U.S. communities to commit additional crimes.”

What ICE really means is, you better work with us, sometimes unlawfully, or else. ICE has routinely threatened safe cities for passing pro-immigrant policies while behaving like the bad guys they constantly fearmonger about. Just this month, ICE tried to deport a number of Cameroonian asylum-seekers who said in a civil rights complaint that agents tortured them in order to coerce them into deportation.

However, other Black immigrants on the flight that the asylum-seekers were removed from at the last minute were deported, despite pleas from advocates and congressional leaders. ICE has long felt accountable to no one, and it’s only become more brazen under this current president. That needs to end once and for all.

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