There is an inconvenient truth missing from much of America’s immigration debate: millions of people who entered this country illegally have established productive lives, raised families, worked hard, obeyed the law, and become valued members of their communities. They may have violated immigration law to get here, but they are not necessarily criminals in the ordinary sense of the word. Many are precisely the sort of neighbors any American would welcome.
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And yet, some of the greatest dangers these people face may arise from the very politicians who claim to be their protectors.
Consider the extraordinary contradiction of so-called sanctuary policies. Politicians proclaim their compassion for undocumented immigrants while adopting rules that can prevent local law enforcement from cooperating with federal immigration authorities when dangerous offenders are already in custody. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) must sometimes pursue those individuals in the community, where innocent people are far more likely to become entangled in enforcement operations.
A policy advertised as protecting the innocent can instead shield the guilty, complicate law enforcement, and expose the innocent to greater danger.
That is not compassion. It is a failure to distinguish between people who deserve our sympathy and those who threaten public safety.
Imagine an undocumented immigrant arrested and convicted of a serious violent crime. After serving his sentence, he is scheduled for release. Federal immigration authorities have identified him as a potential deportation target and requested notification of his release.
Under a policy permitting cooperation, local officials can notify ICE, allowing federal agents to arrange a lawful transfer of custody, subject to applicable legal requirements. One offender, one controlled location, and minimal disruption to the surrounding community.
But under certain sanctuary restrictions, local authorities may decline to provide release notification or facilitate a transfer. The offender returns to the streets. ICE must locate him again, identify his whereabouts, and attempt an arrest outside the controlled environment of a correctional facility.
Now federal agents may encounter family members, coworkers, neighbors, and other undocumented immigrants who were never the intended targets of the operation.
Which approach creates the greater opportunity for innocent people to become involved?
The answer should be obvious. Shifting enforcement from jails to neighborhoods increases encounters with people who would otherwise have never come into contact with immigration authorities.
The irony is breathtaking. Politicians who denounce ICE for conducting community operations have created the very circumstances that make those operations necessary.
The more effectively authorities can identify and remove dangerous individuals through targeted enforcement, the less justification exists for broad neighborhood operations.
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The Migration Policy Institute reports that between fiscal years 2015 and 2024, approximately 840,000 arrests occurred through custodial transfers, compared with 437,000 arrests outside custody. The community arrests require more personnel and more resources and carry greater risks.
This is the practical argument sanctuary advocates too often ignore.
Consider the undocumented father who has worked construction for fifteen years, supported his children, and never harmed another person. Or the mother who cleans hotel rooms, pays taxes, and worries every day about keeping her family together.
What possible benefit do these people receive when a violent offender is released rather than transferred to federal custody?
None. They may instead find ICE agents operating in their neighborhoods, questioning people, and making additional immigration arrests. The danger of these encounters is real.
A government genuinely concerned about undocumented families would distinguish between those living peacefully and those who prey upon others.
The real scandal is that political ideology so often obscures this distinction.
When politicians prevent reasonable cooperation with ICE, then condemn federal agents for entering communities to find offenders who could have been transferred from jail, they deserve to have that contradiction exposed.
The objective should be fewer dangerous criminals on our streets, fewer unnecessary immigration encounters, and greater security for everyone — citizen and immigrant alike.
If sanctuary politicians truly care about hardworking undocumented families, they should stop treating cooperation with immigration authorities as an unforgivable political sin. Protecting the innocent and apprehending the dangerous are not competing moral obligations. They are complementary responsibilities of government. When sanctuary policies obstruct that distinction, the people who suffer are the very immigrants those policies pretend to protect.
One might reasonably wonder whether the chaos created by sanctuary policies is an unintended consequence — or precisely the political spectacle some politicians prefer. When local authorities refuse to cooperate with ICE in transferring dangerous criminals already in custody, they require unnecessary public confrontations. The resulting images of federal agents conducting street operations become political ammunition for the very politicians whose policies helped make those operations necessary.
Politicians can then portray ICE as the villain, denounce federal enforcement as indiscriminate, and present themselves as compassionate defenders of immigrant communities. It is a remarkably convenient arrangement: obstruct the quieter, more targeted means of enforcement, then express outrage over the more disruptive alternative. Whether deliberately engineered or merely exploited, the political incentives are unmistakable. The chaos becomes the message, ICE becomes the scapegoat, and the hardworking, law-abiding immigrants supposedly being protected become collateral damage in a political performance.
Jim Cardoza is the author of The Moral Superiority of Liberty and the founder of LibertyPen.com. Read more of his essays there.
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Image: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement