I & I Editorial BoardToday, the governors of three “sanctuary states” will try to explain to lawmakers why it is official state policy to protect those who are in the U.S. illegally – including violent felons – from deportation.
Do these governors know that millions of American citizens have fled their sanctuary states in the past four years? Do they care?
The hearing – which will feature Illinois’ JB Pritzker, Minnesota’s Tim Walz, and New York’s Kathy Hochul – should be a lively one, even if the preening California Gov. Gavin Newsom isn’t there to defend the riots his policies have unleashed.
“The governors of these states must explain why they are prioritizing the protection of criminal illegal aliens over the safety of U.S. citizens, and they must be held accountable,” said House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Chairman James Comer.
Indeed, they must.
These sanctuary states, and the cities and counties around the country that have blindly followed suit, make it a policy not to work with Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials. That includes letting felons who have deportation orders out on bail rather than handing them over to ICE agents.
The cost of this can be measured in lives lost, women raped, property damaged, and taxpayers fleeced by these wildly misplaced priorities.
It can also be measured by how many have fled sanctuary states for those states that care more about the safety and welfare of U.S. citizens than they do people who snuck across the border under the cover of darkness.
The numbers are truly eye-opening.
Eleven states and the District of Columbia are considered “sanctuary states” by the Center for Immigration Studies and are ranked as the friendliest to illegal immigrants by the Immigrant Legal Resource Center.
Of those, 10 have seen a net loss of population due to internal migration from 2020 to 2024, according to Census Bureau data.
How many have fled these states? Try 3.1 million.
New York alone saw 966,209 leave. Illinois lost 418,056, and Minnesota lost 47,930. California is the all-time leader – it suffered a net loss of more than 1.2 million over those years.
In fact, the top five population losers are all sanctuary states.
Just two sanctuary states – Vermont and Colorado – eked out population gains … a mere 37,000 in total.
In contrast, of the 12 states ranked by the Immigrant Legal Resource Center as having the least friendly to illegal immigrants, 10 had huge net gains in population from 2020 to 2024 – totaling 2.9 million.
Just two of these anti-illegal immigrant states – Kansas and Louisiana – lost population … just 153,000.
Obviously, how states handle illegal immigrants isn’t the only reason behind this mass migration. It’s part of a broader problem in states run by leftist Democrats.
These are, after all, the same states that tax their own residents into the poorhouse, regulate businesses to death, refuse to crack down on crime, and waste gobs of taxpayer money on failing public schools. All while showering benefits on people who came into the country illegally.
Is it any surprise that so many honest, hard-working Americans are packing their bags and saying ¡Adios pendejos!
— Written by the I&I Editorial Board
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Thanks I&I for the two graphs showing states that are the most pro and most anti-immigration.
I remember when “Sanctuary” was a good thing. It happened when the church protected good people who were unjustifiably hounded by the government. Most illustrative of it (at least for me) was the movie “Hunchback of Notre Dame”-a movie in the 30’s starring Charles Laughton and Maureen OHara).
Nowadays “sanctuary” means giving anti-American lawbreakers a break-even if they have criminally hurt others.
This-unfortunately-is where our society is going. Protecting evil doers and criminals while going after Mom’s who just disagree with the Government’s education policy.
As an aside, too bad the states and churches didn’t offer Sanctuary from the horrible (and inaccurate) dictates of the Government that COVID brought.
Democrats have a fundamental lack of understanding of human nature.
Their failures are that simple….minded.
Blind adherence to the intellectual altruism of Sanctuary City concepts, creates all manner of unintended but obvious, real world municipal problems for all the legal residents. Obviously!
If you reduce the police, criminals will do more crime.
If you allow stealing up to $1,000, people will shop lift up to $1,000.
If you declare that young black males will no longer be stopped in traffic for dangerous driving, as Philadelphia’s City Council declared, you end up with even more dangerous driving everywhere in the city by young males, now with legal immunity.
If you create a special tax on the wealthy, as Philadelphia City Council attempted, wealthy people will take their taxes and move away.
If you had a few excellent magnet public high schools, really top schools, but felt the excellence was racist, as Philadelphia City Council declared, and remove the admission tests to be admitted to the few excellent schools, you no longer have the few excellent magnet schools!
Why are Democrats so deaf, dumb and blind to our own human nature?
The problem is, they create cancer, then take their ball and move to another state. Only to be a cancer there and ruin it next, they don’t learn, because they have not been hurt hard enough by their ignorant voting.
Kansas has a Dem Governor. The big university towns keep her in office. There isn’t enough population in the rest of the state to offset them.