Respected Democratic pollster and former chief strategist for Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign, Mark Penn, on Thursday stated that most of Americans don’t support the so-called “sanctuary cities” that protect undocumented immigrants from deportation, The Washington Examiner reported.
According to a poll he conducted, 84 percent of Americans are against shielding undocumented immigrants and want to hand them over to federal agents.
“I asked them ‘do you think notifying ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] would, in fact, increase crime because it would inhibit people from reporting crimes or does it decrease crimes because it takes criminals off the street,’ and they overwhelming said ‘decrease crime’,” Penn told Hill.TV “Rising.”
Penn also added that the response was “out of sync” with what the public might think about sanctuary cities.
The term refers to cities that don’t fully cooperate with federal authorities when it comes to turning over undocumented immigrants to immigration enforcement.
“When someone’s arrested, they expect someone will notify federal immigration authorities just as they would expect someone who violates state tax law,” the pollster said.
President Donald Trump has spoken regularly against sanctuary cities, saying that they make the U.S. less safe.
In January, Trump signed an executive order in an effort to withhold money from sanctuary cities; however, it did not work out as some of that money did still goes to those cities.
Some cities protested Trump’s crackdown. Mayors, including New York’s Bill de Blasio and New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu, boycotted a meeting with Trump following his executive order. De Blasio called the order a “racist assault” on sanctuary cities.
But it looks like Trump has achieved a victory — at least for now.
A federal appeals court on Tuesday temporarily narrowed the scope of a nationwide injunction against the Trump administration’s attempt to withhold grants from sanctuary cities.
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