Well, here we go again. Another round of red-faced shouting over “Sanctuary Cities,” as if your local sheriff were secretly running a coyote ring out of the jail basement and giving undocumented immigrants a free pass to Disneyland.
You’ve heard the chorus. “They’re breaking the law!” “They’re aiding criminals!” “They’re ignoring ICE!”—and if that doesn’t get you properly spooked, someone will throw in MS-13 just to get the blood boiling.
But let’s back up and breathe some air not manufactured by talk radio.
Here’s the truth: your local police are not federal immigration agents. They weren’t hired to be. They weren’t trained to be. And they sure as hell weren’t funded to be.
Let’s talk about a fellow named Duncan Roy, held by the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department after his sentence was up—because ICE slapped a “detainer” on him. Not a warrant. Not a court order. Just a polite little Post-it saying, “Hey, keep him here, we might be by later.”
So he sued. And—say it with me now—he won.
Because under this pesky little thing called the Fourth Amendment, you don’t get to detain people in America just because someone in another agency has a bad feeling. You need a warrant. You need probable cause. You need something more than a hunch.
And if you don’t have that? You can be sued. And you can lose. As L.A. County and Sheriff Baca did.
You see, the Tenth Amendment says the federal government can’t boss states and localities around like unpaid interns. Washington can pass laws. It can enforce them. But it can’t force your city or county to play backup singer in its immigration opera.
This isn’t liberal blather—it’s federalism, that thing conservatives swear they love until it gets in the way of deporting gardeners and nannies.
So when a town says, “Sorry ICE, not our job unless you bring a warrant,” they’re not being defiant—they’re being constitutional.
Let’s talk brass tacks: You start turning local police into immigration agents, and you just made the streets a whole lot dumber and a whole lot more dangerous.
Why? Because now your immigrant neighbors—yes, even the ones paying taxes and raising kids and coaching soccer—stop calling 911. They stop reporting abuse. They disappear into the shadows. And you, tough guy, are now living in a town where real criminals get to work in peace.
Every street-smart police chief knows this. That’s why so many of them hate being roped into ICE’s side hustle. Their job is to stop crime, not tear apart families at a traffic stop.
And here’s another fine point: You’re the one paying the sheriff’s salary. Not ICE. Not DHS. Not some border hawk in D.C. with a Twitter addiction.
So unless your idea of “fiscal responsibility” is turning your hometown cops into federal temps—complete with lawsuits, overtime, and a hotline to the ACLU—you might want to let local governments run their own damn budgets.
Now for the tired old lie: “They’re protecting criminals!”
Listen. If you rape, murder, or beat someone up, you go to jail. That’s true in a sanctuary city, a sanctuary suburb, or a sanctuary outhouse. Nobody’s protecting violent criminals—not even in San Francisco, despite what Fox & Friends tells you.
What sanctuary means is this: when your time’s up and ICE doesn’t have a warrant, the jail can’t keep you just because Uncle Sam asked nicely. That’s called due process, and it’s the kind of thing we’re supposed to be proud of in this country.
Now, President Trump likes to claim that sanctuary cities are breaking federal law. But that’s like yelling “the moon is made of cheese” and daring people to argue.
Because there is no federal law that requires local police to help ICE. None. Nada. Zilch.
The courts have said it. The Constitution backs it. And the Founders, bless their powdered wigs, would’ve agreed that local folks ought to run local law enforcement.
So no, Mr. Trump. Sanctuary cities aren’t lawless. They’re just not doing your job for you. If ICE wants to arrest someone, they can go get a warrant like the rest of us.
This isn’t about protecting criminals or undermining the law. It’s about upholding it. It’s about understanding that we live in a nation of laws, not a nation of gut feelings and TV soundbites.
And yes, it’s about decency—the kind that says you don’t get locked in a cage without cause, and that local police are here to protect you, not deport your auntie.
So when you hear someone bashing sanctuary cities, ask yourself a simple question:
Are they mad about the law?
Or are they just mad the law won’t let them get away with something?
That’s not sanctuary. That’s sovereignty. That’s local control. That’s American as hell.
And anyone who tells you otherwise might want to spend a little more time reading the Constitution they claim to love—and a little less time yelling about it on TV.