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Boston’s Democrat Mayor Michelle Wu, like other big city Democrat mayors of sanctuary cities, is defying the federal government’s enforcement of U.S. immigration laws. These mayors, together with other pro-illegal immigrant Democrat leaders around the country, are recklessly endangering the lives of their own citizens as well as the lives of immigration enforcement agents with their defiance. The Trump administration is taking action to bring them to account, but these progressive Democrats continue to be confrontational with the federal government, just as segregationist Democrats were six decades ago.
Mayor Wu brushed off a letter she received from U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, which demanded a response that “confirms your commitment to complying with federal law and identifies the immediate initiatives you are taking to eliminate laws, policies, and practices that impede federal immigration enforcement.” Attorney General Bondi sent such “sanctuary city” letters to the mayors of thirty-two cities and a number of county executives.
Instead of offering to cooperate with the federal government to find common ground, Mayor Wu snarked, “Here is our response: Stop attacking our cities to hide your administration’s failures. Unlike the Trump administration, Boston follows the law, and Boston will not back down from who we are and what we stand for.”
What Mayor Wu stands for is letting illegal immigrant criminals run free on the streets of Boston rather than being turned over to ICE safely at the local police station upon their release from jail. Mayor Wu detests ICE agents, whom she has compared to neo-Nazis and smeared as the “secret police.”
Reacting to Mayor Wu’s performative rebellion, Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons promised to “flood” Boston with immigration agents. “Boston and Massachusetts decided to say that they wanted to stay sanctuary,” Mr. Lyons said. “Sanctuary does not mean safer streets. It means more criminal aliens out and about the neighborhood. But 100%, you will see a larger ICE presence.”
Mayor Wu has a habit of siding with the illegal immigrants whom she is harboring in her sanctuary city and considers to be her constituents, including alleged murderers, rapists, and drug traffickers. Wu refuses to distinguish between the immigrants who have followed the rules to enter and live in America the right way versus the illegal immigrants who jumped the line.
On the Left Coast, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass is another disastrous Democrat large city politician who keeps conflating legal and illegal immigrants. When asked whether illegal immigrants in her city should be deported, she replied, “I don’t think so. I think they should stay.”
Mayor Bass charged that the Trump administration launched a “reign of terror” by rounding up illegal immigrants in Los Angeles. She was especially angered by President Trump’s deployment of National Guard and Marine troops to protect Federal facilities and immigration law enforcement agents during last June’s riots that her own city’s police force was unable to quell.
What about the law-abiding American residents of Los Angeles who have been terrorized by the violent illegal immigrant criminals whom ICE agents were tasked with removing from LA’s streets? They don’t count in Mayor Bass’s list of priorities as much as the illegal immigrants whom Mayor Bass wants to protect from deportation.
Mayor Brandon Johnson of Chicago is another pro-illegal immigrant progressive Democrat. He compared immigration law enforcement to “terrorism.” And he said that “This is what our country would look like had the Confederacy won.” Ironically, Johnson is trying to engage in the same nullification of federal authority as pre-Civil War Southern Democrats did.
Democrat Mayor Craig Greenberg is the rare exception among Democrat mayors of major cities. He agreed to the Trump administration’s request to hold immigrant inmates at the city’s jail for 48 hours to provide the Department of Homeland Security more time in which to be able to detain them.
U. S. Attorney General Bondi pointed to Mayor Greenberg’s cooperation with federal authorities on immigration matters as “an example to other cities.” Louisville has reaped the benefits – a virtual absence of immigration enforcement raids, no interruption of federal funding, and removal from the Department of Justice’s list of sanctuary jurisdictions facing possible federal lawsuits.
Unfortunately, most Democrat political leaders prefer confrontation with the Trump administration rather than cooperation, placing more priority on protecting illegal immigrants than serving the needs of the American people.
