“Sanctuary cities” poison America

I know most people who support Sanctuary Cities (or states, or counties) feel virtuous, as if they are helping the downtrodden.

They are.

They are also helping criminals, defined as someone who is breaking U.S. law.

“Oh, but it is a very low-level crime,” the progressives smugly reply.

So is shoplifting, but it can destroy an honest bodega owner. Large merchants compensate by raising their prices on the rest of us.

Even “small crime” hurts us as a nation. To paraphrase the late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, it defines dishonesty down.

The popular-on-the-Left “it don’t matter” thinking brought us a crop of district attorneys who don’t prosecute shoplifting.

Consequence: More shoplifting, which often upgrades to smash and grab crimes in pharmacies, department stores and jewelry shops. You have seen the video from all across the nation. 

Lack of enforcement against bad behavior breeds more bad behavior. Every reasonable adult knows that, certainly every parent.

Defined generally, “sanctuaries” refuse to help federal enforcement officials — such as ICE, an arm of the Department of Homeland Security — apprehend and remove those here illegally.

Removal is U.S. law. And “no one is above the law,” we keep hearing. Except for Democrats, because of the 300 “sanctuaries” across America, including 11 states, I can’t think of one that is run by Republicans. Democrats own this. Check the “strong liberal” stat. More than 2/3s of them condone thwarting U.S. law. This is bragging rights among the woke.

“Sanctuaries” impede U.S. law. That is undeniable. Opposing santuaries is not opposing immigration. It is opposing unrestricted immigration.

Some try to justify their actions with the false claim that immigration law is ”racist.” Maybe once, but not since 1965 when the law was rewritten and turned on its head. Today, not one of the top 10 countries of origin of legal immigrants is white. Not complaining, stating fact.

Here is the usual illogical sanctuary line of reasoning:

“These are poor people seeking a better life and they haven’t hurt anyone.”

The first half may be true, but many of the “poor” managed to pay thousands of dollars to coyotes to smuggle them across the border. And coyotes are part of crime cartels.

There are millions of poor people who want a better life. Can we take them all? No.

The illegals have hurt someone.

First, they have hurt all of us by placing their wants over our law. They could do what untold millions of immigrants have done — take a number and wait their turn. But they are too self-centered for that.

Second, by being willing to work for less, usually off the books, they depress wages and that does hurt someone.

Who? 

Black Americans. They often have to compete with illegals for low-wage jobs.

So when you are wildly virtue signaling your compassion, please know you are hurting your fellow Americans.

Do you know? Do you care?

In the broader, societal sense, “sanctuaries” nullify national law. Local officials, whether governors or mayors, while bleating how “welcoming” they are, set themselves above laws passed by Congress.

That is as undemocratic as anything they accuse MAGA of.

They say “no one is above the law,” but their actions place the illegals above the law. 

It takes awesome gall.

Now there is talk of creating a pathway to citizenship for them, which rewards bad behavior and mocks legal immigrants who did things the right way. Rewarding bad behavior encourages more of that.

Why would Democrats encourage bad behavior?

Ah, so they will vote for them.

How incredibly cynical and unAmerican.

In Philadelphia and elsewhere, government workers — from health care to teachers to police — are forbidden to even ask the citizenship status of anyone. That is done to prevent anyone else from blowing the whistle on those “who live in the shadows.”

They are in the shadows because they are in the wrong. They know it and the jurisdictions know it. And they don’t care, because they get to feel virtuous.

All this encourages others who don’t like law to simply ignore it.

While the “sanctuaries” for illegals are in Blue areas, do you know what you are getting in Red areas? Second Amendment sanctuaries in jurisdictions that say they won’t enforce any national gun laws they don’t like.  

How does that sound?

To me, it sounds like a national, breakdown of respect for the rule of law, where everyone gets to choose which laws to obey. Anarchy, anyone?

If it keeps up, maybe we will have Free Living Sanctuaries that won’t enforce laws against any kind of discrimination against minorities of any sort — racial, religious, gender, etc. 

How does that sound?

One thing that defines us is that we are a nation of law. No one — Left, Right, Center — can be allowed to tear that down. 

Finally, and undeniably, “sanctuaries” amount to Open Borders.

Mostly, the “sanctuary” supporters I know deny they are for Open Borders. They haven’t thought it through.

Broadly defined, Open Borders is a system that allows anyone to settle in a country free from regulation. 

It is “Come one, come all.”

And that was the system in America a very long time ago, a time when we needed all the unskilled labor we could pull out of the rest of the world, notably Europe.

That is not the case today. And the uninvited guests are pouring across the border in record numbers.

In a sanctuaries like Philadelphia, which will not even voluntarily surrender convicted foreign felons to ICE, anyone who gets here can stay here, without documentation of any sort.

That is the definition of Open Borders.

If you are honest, you can’t say you are for a sanctuary but not for Open Borders.

Honestly, you are. They are the same.

And Open Borders will sink America because we can’t handle the untold millions who would flood here seeking a better life if they could.

Open Borders is a death sentence for America.