Jason Richwine - Resident Fellow, Center for Immigration Studies Joins Houston's Morning News

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Well, sanctuary cities, I guess, have been a safe place
for illegals to land, so much so that nearly eight
million are living in sanctuary cities. But that's not going
to be quite so safe after January of the twentieth.
Jason Richwine joins US Resident Fellow with the Center for
Immigration Studies. It's interesting the reaction that we've seen so far, Jason,
of the mayors of some of these cities. For example,

(00:22):
New York's mayor Eric Adams, seems like he's going to
be very cooperative with ICE and with immigration officials once
the Trump administration takes over. Other liberal cities not so.

Speaker 2 (00:32):
Much, that's right. I mean, there's some good news and
some bad news here. Of course, a sanctuary jurisdiction could
be at the state level or the local level, and
it means any jurisdiction that does not fully cooperate with ICE,
Immigration and Customs enforcement. And you know, as you said,
you know, the numbers are pretty high. Over half lived
in these sanctuary areas, and that amounts to about eight

(00:54):
million or so illegal aliens. Now, as I said, New
York is good news. I think there are some politicians
who are starting to realize, especially with a huge Biden
surge over the last four years, that they have to
get control of illegal immigration, and that by serving as
sanctuaries they are effectively part of the incentive for illegal
immigrants to come to United States in the first place.

Speaker 1 (01:17):
No, I think you're right about that. I wonder though,
when you're dealing with the well, let's take California as
a prime example. I mean, it's not just sanctuary cities.
Los Angeles is a sanctuary city, so is San Francisco
and several others in the state. The entire state, though,
is a sanctuary state. We know, at least we've been
told by the federal government that it's not a state issue,

(01:37):
and we've had to test that here in Texas. Immigration
is not a state issue. It's a federal issue. The
Feds have total control over the border and over immigration.
If that's the case, then does the federal government have
the right to go into a place like California to
retrieve illegal aliens even if they can't get any cooperation.

Speaker 2 (01:57):
Of course they do, yes, And the phenomena you're mentioning
is very frustrating because the federal government of starts full jurisdiction,
full control of immigration, but then basically says and yeah,
we're not actually going to enforce it. You know, that's
an extremely frustrating thing. So in your state, you know,
your governor particular, has been trying very hard to fill

(02:18):
that gap that the federal government has abandoned, you know,
despite the responsibility to do something about it. And now
we're going to get a big change in January twentieth.
Now the administration is going to be attempting to actually
not only enforce the border, but the poor illegal aliens,
and they're going to be working with the states that
want to work with them. Yeah. I should mention that

(02:39):
that the percentage of illegals who live in sanctuaries is
not as high as it could be because Texas and
also Florida, both high immigration states, ban sanctuaries statewide. So
no jurisdiction in Texas, no jurisdiction in Florida are sanctuaries.
But that's not the case for some other red states. Georgia,

(03:00):
for example, allows a planner to be a sanctuary city.
I would say that any state that wants to work
with President Trump on this needs to make sure that
there are no sanctuaries in their states.

Speaker 1 (03:11):
Yeah. I feel like we've talked about this a million
times in trying to get cooperation from state and local officials,
either willingly or not willingly, and I realized that if
they are going to cooperate at all this wi is
only so much you can do. But the charactimistic approach
always seems to work the best. Do you think this
administration is willing to withhold federal funds from states and

(03:34):
cities that are not willing to participate?

Speaker 2 (03:37):
But I think they would like to do that. I mean,
there are some legal questions over to what degree they
can do that. There's some question of you know, if
you offer funds for a certain program, you can't necessarily
add on more requirements to receive the same funds, So
that will be a little bit of a challenge. But
again I want to emphasize that just because they're not
getting cooperation from the local government doesn't mean the local

(03:59):
government where the state governments are allowed to interfere. When
federal agents come to California or Illinois or New York
and they want to arrest in the illegal alien, they can.
No state or local officials are allowed to step in between.
So that's something that the Trump administration can rely on,
although as I said, it would be so much better

(04:20):
if those states actually just cooperated with Effets.

Speaker 1 (04:22):
All right, Jason, thanks for joining us. Appreciate it. Resident
fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies, that is Jason Richwind.
It's five fifty six