Not only did President Donald Trump bring a number of bold immigration reform proposals with him when he returned to the White House last month, but he has also empowered other officials to pursue paths toward enhanced border security and immigration law enforcement.
Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) did exactly that with a bill he and others in the chamber introduced recently that would empower victims of criminal illegal immigrants to sue jurisdictions that refuse to enforce immigration laws.
As Breitbart reported:
On Thursday, Tillis and nine other Republicans filed S. 185, a bill titled the “Justice for Victims of Sanctuary Cities Act.”
“For far too long, we have watched local jurisdictions in North Carolina and across the country ignore the lawful notification and detainer requests made by ICE agents and instead release dangerous criminals back into their communities, putting innocent lives at risk,” Tillis said in a statement. “It is time for Congress to step in and hold sanctuary cities accountable.”
Co-sponsor, North Carolina Republican Chuck Edwards, added that it is time to hold sanctuary jurisdictions accountable for the harm sanctuary policies cause the rest of us.
“Sanctuary cities have shielded many of the nearly 650,000 criminal illegal immigrants in the United States from facing the consequences for their violent crimes against innocent Americans for too many years. Sanctuary cities cannot continue to jeopardize Americans’ safety without being held accountable for their role in the illegal immigrant crime crisis we are facing today.” Edwards said.
Sanctuary city policies have unsurprisingly received a lot of the blame for an illegal immigration population that surged over the course of the past four years.
As such, they have been a primary focus of the Trump administration:
President Trump is now conducting daybreak immigration raids in Los Angeles.
LA is a sanctuary city full of countless illegals and many leftists who said they’d protect them.
Border Czar Tom Homan has a message for these activists, “Don’t get in our way!”
God bless Hero Homan! pic.twitter.com/YINKhHOAhd
— Paul A. Szypula 🇺🇸 (@Bubblebathgirl) January 26, 2025
It's impossible to watch this and still support sanctuary cities, or any politician who does… pic.twitter.com/Uq8KygqY0g
— John LeFevre (@JohnLeFevre) January 27, 2025
This takeover by illegals is what Los Angeles voted for.
Defund all of California until sanctuary cities there are outlawed.
Federal tax dollars should not be wasted subsidizing this foreign criminality. pic.twitter.com/9IYAjhrZ7k
— Paul A. Szypula 🇺🇸 (@Bubblebathgirl) February 3, 2025
Within days of his inauguration, Trump had already issued a clear warning to sanctuary jurisdictions nationwide and officials determined to thwart his immigration crackdown.
As Reuters reported at the time:
In a memo seen by Reuters, Trump’s acting deputy attorney general, Emil Bove, told Justice Department staff that state and local authorities must cooperate with the immigration crackdown and federal prosecutors “shall investigate incidents involving any such misconduct for potential prosecution.”
The Justice Department could also challenge laws that complicate the effort, Bove wrote.
The policy was issued as the new Republican administration prepared to step up policing of illegal immigration in cities with significant migrant populations, setting up potential confrontations with officials in cities such as New York and Chicago that limit cooperation with such efforts.
The new memo underscored how Trump’s Justice Department may try to back his immigration agenda by expanding threats of criminal charges beyond immigrants or those who employ them to city and state officials. It is the latest in a series of executive actions Trump has taken to curb illegal immigration, his top priority.
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Investigations have already been launched into the policies of multiple sanctuary cities:
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