Jason Smith: President Trump continues the fight to keep our nation safe

(From Eighth District Congressman Jason Smith)

President Trump’s work to secure our borders, build a wall, and restore the rule of law across our county has energized millions of Americans since he became President.

However, his efforts to keep American families safe have continually been undermined by cities which flagrantly disregard our country’s illegal immigration laws and serve as “Sanctuary Cities” for illegal immigrants seeking a safe hide-away. 

This week, the federal courts reaffirmed the President’s right to withhold all federal taxpayer funds from these cities which undermine our national security by protecting illegal immigrants and other criminals from federal law enforcement.

While you may think this is common sense, apparently it isn’t for Democrats in Washington. They have consistently refused to work with the President to protect our nation from drugs and crime. 

Instead, they advocate for open borders, embrace all forms of illegal immigration, and have decided to demonize our law enforcement officers who protect our country. They have even called for eliminating the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE) -the same agency that works tirelessly to stop drugs and dangerous criminals, like international terrorists and human traffickers, from entering our country.

In fact, mayors in areas like San Francisco and New York have forbidden their own law enforcement from working with ICE or U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP). 

To make their disgust clear, some leftist leaders have even openly undercut ICE’s and CPB’s mission to protect Americans. In 2018, the anti-Trump mayor of Oakland called an emergency press conference to warn illegal immigrants to hide because ICE had enforcement activities planned in the city. It’s heartbreaking that the left is refusing to work with President Trump to protect the American people from these criminals. 

In November of 2018, an illegal immigrant—who had been released from a county jail in New Jersey after a felony assault case—killed three people in Springfield, Missouri. If New Jersey authorities had simply alerted ICE that they were about to release the illegal immigrant, these three innocent Missourians would still be alive.

Your hard earned dollars are wasted far too often in Washington, but what’s worse is that they shouldn’t be sent to help provide support to communities and cities who in turn decide to openly break federal immigration law. That’s why I rewrote a federal funding bill in 2017 to say that no taxpayer dollars—including those paid by any Missourian—will go to support the construction of federal roads, bridges, highways, or other critical infrastructure in any state that violates federal law and protects illegal immigrants. 

This is just common sense. There is no reason that any taxpayer should subsidize these liberal policies that incentivize illegal immigration by offering criminals asylum from law enforcement. 

While my legislation passed the U.S. House of Representatives, it was blocked by Chuck Schumer and his liberal pals in the Senate. Thankfully, despite their obstruction, President Trump continued the fight.

President Trump announced he would withhold federal grants from any Sanctuary City until they started enforcing the immigration laws of our country. Of course, his decision was immediately challenged by seven liberal state Attorney Generals. Finally, last week, after months of dishonest arguments by the left, the federal courts ruled in favor of President Trump.

Empowered by the court’s ruling, President Trump will continue to do what he has promised to do all along – do everything in his power to keep American families and their loved ones safe. Whether that is completing over 100 miles of a border wall, starting construction on another 500, or making sure cities which serve as safe havens for illegal immigrants to avoid federal detection don’t continue to operate without consequence, the President is making America safer every day. 

While he has gotten all of this done in the face of historic opposition, just think of where we would be if the left placed as high a priority on the security of American families as they did on the rights of illegal immigrants. 

Hopefully this decision makes places like Los Angeles, New York, Boston, Chicago, and Philadelphia rethink how their Sanctuary City status is hurting the very families which call their cities home, but something tells me their blind hostility to our President will prevent them from doing what is right.