President Joe Biden’s administration distributed roughly $300 million of taxpayer money to sanctuary jurisdictions in 2021 alone, according to a new report that traced the allocation of several federal grants.
The Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) found that nearly 40% of the available funds for three law enforcement grants went to jurisdictions that have adopted policies that prohibit, ban, or undermine the enforcement of federal immigration laws.
Under Biden, the Department of Justice designated dozens of self-proclaimed sanctuary cities and counties as recipients of taxpayer funding from the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program, Byrne Justice Assistance Grants, and the Community Oriented Policing Services program.
The three programs are intended to increase public safety measures. However, sanctuary jurisdictions seemingly resist Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in its attempts to enforce federal laws.
According to CIS, such local governments allegedly “obstruct immigration enforcement and shield criminals from ICE — either by refusing to or prohibiting agencies from complying with ICE detainers, imposing unreasonable conditions on detainer acceptance, denying ICE access to incarcerated aliens, or otherwise impeding communication or information exchanges between their personnel and federal immigration officers.”
Recipients of some of the largest grants included Chicago ($6,496,350), San Francisco ($6,375,000), Washington, D.C. ($5,111,910), and Los Angeles ($2,750,000). California was the clear champion, with its sanctuary jurisdictions raking in nearly $82,402,790 of taxpayer money.
Jessica Vaughan, CIS’s director of policy studies and one of the report’s authors, spoke with The Dallas Express about its information, explaining it is the culmination of years of research documenting around 300 sanctuary jurisdictions.
She said ICE “relies on cooperation and they’re not getting it from the sanctuaries. And yet at the same time, these sanctuaries are able to be subsidized with these law enforcement grants.”
“It’s outrageous in itself that sanctuaries deliberately have these policies — they’re bad policies,” Vaughan said. “But they shouldn’t be able to obstruct immigration enforcement in this way, causing criminals to be released, and still get handouts from the Department of Justice for law enforcement purposes.”
“They’re undermining public safety on the one hand and trying to get support from the feds on the other,” she claimed.
During the administration of former President Donald Trump, significant efforts were made to stop the Justice Department from giving taxpayer-funded grants to sanctuary jurisdictions.
“The Trump administration picked up on it and the Justice Department for a time was able to block certain kinds of funding to cities like Los Angeles and a few other places,” Vaughan said, but such attempts were locked up in lawsuits for years.
“Then Biden comes in and one of the first things he does is reverse this policy of defunding sanctuaries,” she claimed.
Vaughan explained that some states, such as Texas, have independently passed laws preventing sanctuary cities from receiving certain types of grants, noting “it’s working really well there to deter the sanctuaries.”
Interestingly, many of the cities receiving federal taxpayer-funded law enforcement grants have been among those chosen by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to receive buses carrying a combined nearly 25,000 migrants, as reported by The Dallas Express.
Destinations such as Washington, D.C., New York City, Chicago, Denver, and Los Angeles are all within sanctuary jurisdictions subsidized by the Biden administration.
“And yet they are still complaining about the cost of the migrants that are being bussed from Texas,” Vaughan added. “The migrants who are encouraged by their very own policies.”
“People should be upset that cities like Chicago, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C., are raking in this money while obstructing federal law enforcement,” she concluded. “The money should be going to the jurisdictions that are doing the right thing.”
But pro-sanctuary groups have defended the policies, claiming that such initiatives benefit the United States.
“Simply put, more immigrants means safer communities — for everyone,” the National Immigrant Justice Center alleged. “Many studies have found that crime actually decreases in cities with large immigrant populations.”
Similarly, the Center for American Progress claimed, “Crime is statistically significantly lower in sanctuary counties compared to nonsanctuary counties. Moreover, economies are stronger in sanctuary counties.”
The crisis at the southern border continues to rage, however, and the Federation for American Immigration Reform estimated that as of June 2023, roughly 16,800,000 unlawful migrants reside in America, costing citizens $150.7 billion.
Nevertheless, President Biden and members of his administration have repeatedly claimed that the border is secure.