The House on Wednesday approved U.S. Representative Tom Tiffany (R-WI-07)’s amendment blocking so-called sanctuary cities from receiving federal funds.
The Wisconsin Republican’s measure was included in the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act.
State and local governments that refuse to cooperate with federal immigration authorities would be barred from obtaining DHS funds.
Encounters with illegal immigrants at the U.S.-Mexico border are on pace to hit record levels this month, according to U.S. border officials. In the first half of September, U.S. Customs and Border Protection recorded 142,000 migrant encounters at the U.S. southwest border.
Meanwhile, President Joe Biden’s Department of Homeland Security has handed out more than $770 million to cities taking in a flood of illegal immigrants, flowing in thanks to his open border policies. Of that total, some $104 million alone has gone to New York City, a sanctuary city its liberal leaders say is being overrun by illegal immigrants.
Last weekend, sanctuary city Chicago saw a record number of buses filled with illegal immigrants.
“This is definitely a different phase, a different level of intensity with respect to the frequency of buses and how many buses are coming in multiples, coupled with the flights,” Cristina Pacione-Zayas, Mayor Brandon Johnson’s first deputy chief of staff, told WGN-9.
New data show since the end of August 2022, more than 15,000 migrants have arrived in the city, the news outlet reported. As of Monday, 8,936 migrants remained in city shelters, while another 2,011 migrants awaited placement.
As Tiffany noted this week in his floor speech, sanctuary cities have proliferated in far-left U.S. cities in recent years, but their legal status has long been suspect. Former President Bill Clinton, a Democrat, signed a law in 1996 requiring local governments to cooperate with DHS and Immigration and Custom Enforcement.
In April, a panel of the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated a Florida law banning sanctuary city policies.
“New York Mayor Eric Adams recently conceded that the tidal wave of illegal immigrants flooding into his sanctuary city will cost Big Apple residents a staggering $12 billion. He went on to say the influx will ‘destroy’ his city,” Tiffany said in his speech. “But there is more to this issue than just dollars and cents.”
“Because these policies prevent local law enforcement from reporting illegal aliens to ICE, police are often forced to release foreign criminals from custody – who of course go on to target new victims. That doesn’t just put sanctuary cities at risk – it puts every other neighboring community at risk too,” the congressman added.
Tiffany’s amendment in the Homeland Security bill was part of several appropriations bills this week, making it to the floor of the Republican-controlled House. But a government shutdown continued to loom with fiscal hawk conservatives in the House miles apart from a Senate continuing resolution bill to keep government-wide spending flowing.
On the sanctuary city measure, Tiffany said it’s time to “stop rewarding bad behavior.”
“[W]hy are Americans being forced to finance the dangerous and illegal policies of sanctuary cities like New York and Chicago? Why are we bing asked to pick up the tab for the problems these jurisdictions are bringing upon themselves?” Tiffany asked.
– – –
M.D. Kittle is the National Political Editor for The Star News Network.
Photo “Tom Tiffany” by Tom Tiffany.
