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Sanctuary Policies And Trust Acts Only Sow Distrust

Legislators in New Jersey recently introduced Bill S-3672, known as the Immigrant Trust Act. If passed, the legislation would prohibit law enforcement officers from “stopping someone due to their perceived immigration status” and “forbid government agencies and hospitals from asking about someone’s immigration status—unless the information is needed to assess eligibility for benefits.”

Governments exist to protect the interests of their citizens, but the New Jersey Trust Act doesn’t protect the interests of Americans. It is merely another sanctuary policy that protects foreigners who have broken American immigration laws. That’s problematic, because when it comes to illegal immigration, there is a lot that Americans need to be protected from. Due to the Biden administration’s complete lack of immigration enforcement along the southern border, there are a stunning number of criminals, spies and terrorists making their way into the United States.

The number of Chinese nationals entering the U.S. as illegal aliens is up at least 7,000 percent since 2021. Make no mistake, nobody leaves China without the permission of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). And the government of China expects something in return from those who get permission to leave. The CCP keeps tabs on Chinese living overseas via a watchdog organization called the United Front Work Department and a network of at least 54 overseas “police stations” located in 21 different countries, including the U.S.

More than 1.7 million “special interest aliens” (SIAs) have crossed the southern border since Team Biden arrived in the White House. SIAs come from countries that either promote terrorism, protect terrorists or have conditions that allow terrorism to flourish. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) believes SIAs pose a significant risk to the national security and public safety of the United States.

More than 250 aliens on the terrorist watchlist have been released into the United States. The terrorist watchlist includes both known and suspected terrorists. DHS has encountered watchlisted migrants from Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Kyrgyzstan, Mauritania, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria, Tajikistan, Turkey, Uzbekistan and Yemen.

Since the Biden administration effectively erased the border with Mexico, a disturbingly large number of street gang members have made their way into the U.S. The extremely violent Tren de Aragua gang from Venezuela has now established a presence on both the east and west coasts of the United States. Meanwhile, MS-13 and other criminal gangs have seized upon the migration crisis to increase their foothold in America.

It’s bad enough that there are so many nefarious characters now posing a danger to America’s national security and public safety. What’s even worse is that these bad guys, along with all of the other illegal aliens hanging out in the U.S., are costing American taxpayers a fortune.

According to the Federation for American Immigration Reform, American’s shell out approximately $150 billion each year to cover all the freebies given to our uninvited guests. And roughly $42 billion of that consists of medical expenses.

State political leaders inevitably say that they push laws like the New Jersey Trust Act because illegal aliens become members of local communities. If illegals are afraid that cops, doctors, or teachers will report them to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), then they won’t report crimes, seek medical treatment or send their kids to school. And those communities will become less safe.

The problem is that these arguments are both illogical and irresponsible. To begin with, there is zero evidence that illegal aliens forego any kinds of services because they’re afraid of ICE. As a matter of fact, over the last few decades illegal aliens have become utterly brazen in flaunting their unlawful status. Remember the DACA protesters in 2017 who publicly declared themselves “undocumented and unafraid?” It seems pretty obvious that illegal aliens in the United States aren’t particularly worried about being deported, even if they’re arrested while publicly declaring their willingness to break, and keep breaking, American immigration laws.

Moreover, “sanctuary” policies and “trust acts” don’t build unified communities, they sow division and distrust. And they do this in the most hypocritical way possible. Citizenship is a common bond that for millennia has been the glue holding civic units together. Men in combat may fight for king and country, but they’ll accomplish the impossible in an effort to preserve the lives of their fellow citizens.

But the sanctuary/trust act movement turns the classical model on its head. It recasts the longstanding legal distinction between citizens and non-citizens as an arbitrary and discriminatory one that must be abolished, while simultaneously claiming that non-citizens are to be accorded special privileges at the expense of citizens.

No matter how you dress them up, sanctuary policies and trust acts are nothing but willful efforts to inhibit federal immigration enforcement. These irresponsible policies keep cropping up only because state leaders trust that they’ll be shielded from consequences. But, if the U.S. wants to avoid future terror attacks and stay financially solvent, then state leaders who actively interfere with the enforcement of federal immigration laws must be held accountable. And the federal government needs to send a strong message to the states: No more sanctuary policies and no more trust acts!