A new resource has been launched to help Americans fight so-called sanctuary city policies in their city, county and state. It also provides them with information about the law to use for a potential lawsuit.
The resource was published after hundreds of elected officials nationwide said they weren’t planning on cooperating with the incoming Trump administration’s mass deportation plan prioritizing the most violent offenders.
America First Legal published a SHIELD resource (Stop Helping Illegals Enter and Linger without Deportation), which includes a map of states where government officials have said they oppose enforcing federal immigration laws.
The map is not all inclusive – it excludes several Democratic cities in Texas, for example, whose city councils or county commissioners are using taxpayer money to pay for the legal defense of those facing deportation. A Republican state lawmaker has filed a bill in the Texas legislature to stop taxpayer money from being used for such purposes.
The map includes some names and contact information for elected officials in the states it lists, but the information is limited. In Massachusetts, for example, the map doesn’t link to the sanctuary city policies of Amherst, Cambridge, Boston, Concord, Natick, Newton, Northampton, Lawrence, and Somerville, whose leaders have all passed sanctuary city policies. In Natick, for example, town leaders adopted a sanctuary city policy after an Iranian national was arrested there for his alleged ties to a terrorist attack that killed three U.S. service members, The Center Square reported.
The map doesn’t include links to sanctuary city policies of the jurisdictions in the states listed. Users would need to know if their city or town implemented them and find contact information for those officials. The resource explains federal law their leaders are allegedly violating and the legal recourse they may have to respond.
AFL cites federal immigration law, including one provision that explains, ““Any person who, knowing that a person is an alien, brings to or attempts to bring to the United States in any manner whatsoever…knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that an alien has come to, entered, or remains in the United States in violation of law….[may] be fined [and] imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.”
AFL also sent a letter to more than 250 elected officials demanding that they comply with federal law or expect to be sued.
“Concealing, harboring, or shielding aliens could also trigger liability under the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) statute,” AFL says. “Civil RICO remedies are available to ‘[a]ny person injured in his business or property by reason of a violation’ and shall recover threefold the damages he sustains and the cost of the suit, including a reasonable attorney’s fee.’”
It also explains that public officials who’ve committed RICO violations “may be sued in their individual capacities,” similar to a lawsuit Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody filed against federal officials in their personal capacity alleging they discriminated against Floridians when refusing to assist with disaster relief.
Anyone who’s been harmed by their respective jurisdiction’s sanctuary policies, including victims of crimes committed by illegal border crossers harbored by local officials, may sue those officials for triple damages, AFL says. Officials implementing sanctuary city policies also face liability under the substantive due process state-created danger doctrine, it says.
Sanctuary laws or policies “make a mockery of American democracy and demonstrate a shocking disrespect for the rule of law,” AFL argues, calling on localities to abandon them.
According to a recent report by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, 662,566 noncitizens with criminal histories are on ICE’s docket for deportation. Among them are 435,719 convicted criminals with 226,847 who have pending criminal charges.
They include criminal foreign nationals convicted of, or charged with, homicide (14,914), sexual assault (20,061), assault (105,146), kidnapping (3,372), and commercialized sexual offenses, including sex trafficking (3,971).
An additional 60,268 are on the list for burglary/larceny/robbery; 126,343 for traffic offenses including driving under the influence (DUIs) and 16,820 for weapons offenses, The Center Square reported.
Additionally, according to ICE data, 387,000 criminal noncitizens were arrested by ICE agents between fiscal 2021 and 2023.
Under the Biden administration, from fiscal years 2021 through 2024, Border Patrol agents nationwide apprehended more than 55,100 criminal noncitizens of which nearly 5,000 had outstanding wants or warrants, according to CBP data. Office of Field Operations agents apprehended nearly 63,000 criminal noncitizens, of which more than 43,000 had arrests reported in the National Crime Information Center over the same time period, according to the data. Border Patrol agents also arrested nearly 2,300 confirmed gang members over the same time period, The Center Square reported.
