Sanctuary cities and other localities across the U.S. have freed more than 22,000 criminal migrants wanted by federal immigration authorities since January 2021, according to data from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) obtained by the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS). The numbers pertain to ICE detainer requests ignored by local law enforcement agencies, instances when the enforcement agency provided insufficient notice to ICE or early releases of migrants subjected to detainer requests.

Immigration detainers are submitted to local law enforcement agencies after they take custody of a non-citizen — typically on criminal charges unrelated to immigration violations — that ICE suspects to be living in the U.S. unlawfully. These detainers ask the enforcement agency to hold on to the non-citizen long enough for an ICE agent to arrive and make an apprehension on-site.

However, countless localities have passed laws that strictly forbid their law enforcement from cooperating with ICE, which would include honoring immigration detainers. The data published by CIS suggests that sanctuary cities increasingly ignored detainer requests under the Biden-Harris administration, meaning more criminal migrants were released back into the community over the years.

There were 2,512 declined detainers in fiscal year 2021, beginning when Biden assumed office on January 20, 2021, according to the ICE data. There were 5,723 declined detainers in fiscal year 2022, 7,934 declined detainers in fiscal year 2023 and 5,871 declined detainers in fiscal year 2024 only up to the middle of July.

The number of criminal aliens freed into the country by sanctuary authorities could potentially be much higher given that, in numerous instances, local law enforcement releases criminal migrants before ICE is able to become aware of their apprehension and lodge a detainer request.

There are an estimated 17 million illegal migrants currently living in the U.S. as of June 2023, resulting in local law enforcement agencies having countless run-ins with individuals who do not hold lawful status. Since early 2023, ICE has lodged an average of roughly 10,000 immigration detainer requests a month, according to the Transactional Records Clearinghouse.

President-elect Donald Trump — who won office on a hardline immigration platform — has pledged to crack down on sanctuary cities, which could include withholding federal funds. However, sanctuary city leaders have so far expressed intense opposition to the idea of cooperating more with ICE agents.

Boston Mayor Michelle Wu said her police force would not be helping the president-elect’s expected plans for mass deportations, and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson pledged to resist the upcoming administration’s efforts to crack down on illegal immigration. Since Trump’s election victory, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass has been working with city officials to fast-track a bill that would enforce sanctuary laws in her city, and she hopes to have it passed before Trump makes it into office.

ICE did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation about the detainer data.

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“We are going to end all sanctuary cities immediately. We’re gonna end it,” Trump said during an all-women, town-hall meeting Wednesday in Cumming, Georgia, hosted by Harris Faulkner of Fox News.

He was answering a question from Nancy, a mother of a Georgia Bulldog college student who was on campus the day schoolmate Laken Riley was murdered by an illegal alien.

Mentioning the sanctuary city of Athens, Georgia, Nancy asked: “How quickly can you remove those threats to our society so our children can go out on a run as they rightfully should be able to do in a park in the daytime by themselves? It should not be like that.”

When Trump said he would put an and to all sanctuary cities, Faulkner asked: “Is that an executive order you do that with?”

Trump responded: “I can do it with an executive order. I’ll have to do it with an executive order. You can do it with the Aliens Act of 1798, we can do things in terms of moving people out. We can move them out of the sanctuary cities.

“You have some liberal crazy people that they fight – you know, normally you like to understand the opponent. Like in business, you want to understand what is the opposites, why do they want this? Why do they want open borders? Why do they want to do this? Why do they want sanctuary cities? Sanctuary cities are really meant for one thing. To protect criminals. That’s what they’ve become.

“We’re going to end all sanctuary cities in the United States and we’re gonna go back to normalcy. And we’re gonna have law and order.

#Trump: 'We are going to end all sanctuary cities immediately. We're gonna end it.'

'I'll have to do it with an executive order' #border #election2024 pic.twitter.com/S4t8b2VBe3

— WorldNetDaily (@worldnetdaily) October 16, 2024

“We have to reinvigorate our police. We have great police. They’re not allowed to do their job. If they do their job with gusto, which is what we want. We want them to be fair. The sad thing is you will always have a bad apple. Hundreds and hundreds of arrests, one bad arrest, and it’s on the front page of every newspaper and these people are incredible. They want to do their job just like the Border Patrol.

“We’re gonna let them do their job and I’m gonna give them immunity. We’re gonna protect them because they do things and they end up getting sued. They lose their family, they lose their house, they lose their pension, they lose everything. The police officers in this country are law enforcement and sheriffs, everything else, they have to be given back their dignity. They want to do their job. But we’ve become so politically correct.

“You look at New York and Chicago and L.A. and every city. All run by Democrats, OK? Liberal, stupid Democrats — no, and our country — [cheers and applause] Our country has lost its way. It is a good question. In other words, we’re gonna have law and order.”

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