By Jon Miller, Chief Program Officer, Public Rights Project
Immigrants have always played a vital role in driving innovation, prosperity, and community in our country. Sanctuary policies embody compassion, dignity, and the belief that every person — regardless of where they were born — deserves to live without fear.
That’s why I’m particularly troubled by the Trump administration’s alarmist sound bites linking all undocumented immigrants to violent crime. Recently, an ICE operation in Boston led to at least 370 arrests, but only 205 people had “significant criminal charges or convictions.” The administration has not explained the reasoning for the other 165 arrests.
And, the recent executive orders aimed at forcing communities to share local resources with federal immigration enforcement is not only concerning, but also unconstitutional. The administration has specifically threatened sanctuary jurisdictions with significant federal funding cuts and prosecution of city officials if they don’t cooperate.
But Public Rights Project is pushing back. With a coalition of local governments led by the City and County of San Francisco and the County of Santa Clara, we recently filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration to protect sanctuary jurisdictions from federal overreach of immigration enforcement. We argue that the executive order violates the 10th Amendment (which preserves powers to the states and local governments) and other constitutional protections — but this fight is about more than just legal principles.
Sanctuary laws and policies ensure city and state resources are used for local law enforcement and public safety. They do not interfere with federal law enforcement, which our lawsuit plainly states.
Preparing for this moment
During the 2024 election season, I heard from dozens of local government officials across the country about their concerns if Donald Trump was re-elected. Common themes emerged: federal funding cuts affecting local services, federal overreach in their communities, and attacks on immigrants in their jurisdictions.
Although local governments possess unique power to fight civil rights violations, they often lack the capacity and connections needed to deploy legal tools quickly and effectively. If our sanctuary city partners came under attack, there was no question that Public Rights Project would stand by its mission to provide legal support and build coalitions against federal abuses of power. And just 60 days into this administration, we have lived up to that promise, including through this important impact case about immigrant communities.
Debunking the violent crime myth
Sanctuary cities aren’t new. They gained momentum in the 1980s when cities like San Francisco and Portland welcomed immigrants who were fleeing violence and poverty in their native countries. This long history offers data highlighting the safety record of sanctuary cities.
In a 2017 study, researchers found no statistical correlation between an increase in crime rates and sanctuary policies. Another study revealed that counties that implemented sanctuary policies in 2014 actually experienced a decrease of 17.9 violent crimes per 100,000 inhabitants per year, compared to counties that continued to cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Public trust is eroded when local police officers are required to assist with federal immigration enforcement. As our partners in Santa Cruz explain in the lawsuit, the city council found that sanctuary policies helped people feel comfortable interacting with law enforcement. And in Minneapolis, the immigrant community is considered a critical part of the city’s crime prevention efforts. From my vantage, this is why the Trump administration’s effort has it backwards: welcoming policies enable cooperation with law enforcement and promote public safety. Fear does not.
Policies that promote health and safety
While there is no legal definition for “sanctuary city,” most policies prioritize public health and safety over maximizing ICE enforcement. Many of these jurisdictions are home to families with mixed status, and local governments want them to feel welcome, and more importantly, engage with municipal services and their community. I want to live in a country where a group of tenants experiencing severe housing violations can feel safe to speak up and a mother can take her sick child to the doctor with fear of being detained.
Sanctuary policies ensure that all residents in a community feel safe reporting crimes, going to schools, seeking medical care, and accessing critical public services.
For example, our local government partners in San Francisco rely on collecting confidential information from all residents to carry out public health programs. They explained that these efforts are jeopardized if residents worry that sharing personal information could result in detention by immigration authorities.
In some cases, sanctuary policies go a step further and help immigrants integrate into the community. This benefits everyone. Seattle’s Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs offers programs including assistance with the naturalization process, public safety interventions for children of immigrants and young immigrants, victim and family support services, job training and English language skills, and translation services into more languages to broaden access. In St. Paul, immigrants can access assistance programs and the city attorney’s office employs a full-time attorney dedicated to helping with immigration-related issues.
On a practical level, these policies also preserve scarce local resources. Sanctuary cities with lower crime rates save more than $100 million per year in crime-related costs, while cooperation with federal immigration enforcement increases costs by $3.28 million per year.
Local governments aren’t enabling violent criminals to remain in the U.S. Instead, they recognize that immigrants are more than just workers or statistics — developing policies that ensure people are treated with dignity, children aren’t separated from their parents, and asylum seekers receive fair and compassionate treatment.
