Holly MatkinNew York, NY – New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said he will fight back if President Donald Trump decides to ship asylum seekers to the sanctuary city of New York, even as mayors in other sanctuary cities said they would welcome illegal immigrants with open arms.
“Due to the fact that Democrats are unwilling to change our very dangerous immigration laws, we are indeed, as reported, giving strong considerations to placing Illegal Immigrants in Sanctuary Cities only…” President Trump tweeted on April 12.
“The Radical Left always seems to have an Open Borders, Open Arms policy – so this should make them very happy!” he added.
The President reiterated his position on Monday morning.
“Those Illegal Immigrants who can no longer be legally held [Congress must fix the laws and loopholes] will be, subject to Homeland Security, given to Sanctuary Cities and States!” he tweeted.
Mayors and officials of sanctuary cities across the country, including San Francisco, Chicago, Portland, Seattle and Philadelphia, welcomed the idea.
“As a welcoming city, we would welcome these migrants with open arms, just as we welcomed Syrian refugees, just as we welcomed Puerto Ricans displaced by Hurricane Maria,” Chicago Mayor Rahm Emmanuel said in a statement, according to the New York Post.
Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney said that his city is ready and waiting for illegal immigrants to arrive in the City of Brotherly Love.
“The city would be prepared to welcome these immigrants just as we have embraced our immigrant communities for decades,” Kenney told the New York Post.
San Francisco Mayor London Breed alleged in a tweet that President Trump only floated the idea as a “scare tactic” in order to distract people from “real issues.”
“This is just another in a long line of scare tactics and half-baked ideas that are just about chasing headlines and distracting people from real issues,” Breed declared. “In SF we are proud to be a sanctuary city and we’ll continue to stand up for all of our residents.”
But Mayor de Blasio took a different route, and announced that he would take legal action if the President decides to ship illegal immigrants to his city.
“It’s illegal. It is just plain illegal,” the mayor and potential presidential hopeful said on Monday. “We will meet him in court. We will beat him in court.”
“I remember vividly the day the Trump administration, when he said he was going to cut our security funding because we did not ask for documentation status, because we would not cooperate with everything ICE was doing,” de Blasio told the New York Post.
“We said we would go to court to stop it and we did,” he boasted.
Eight states and hundreds of cities throughout the country currently have policies that prohibit local and state law enforcement agencies from cooperating with federal immigration agents, The Epoch Times reported.
The “immigrant-friendly” city of Las Cruces, NM has recently been overwhelmed by immigrants, prompting the city to ask for help.
“It’s hard to understand what they must be going through, to leave everything behind and try to start a different life,” Las Cruces Mayor Ken Miyagishima added. “I wish we had the resources to help them more but we’re doing the best we can.”
For several months, local churches have been providing temporary assistance to immigrants who have been released by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) while their cases are pending, the Associated Press reported.
On Thursday, the U.S. Border Patrol announced that it would be releasing processed illegal aliens into Texas and southern New Mexico due to “capacity issues,” according to the Associated Press.
Border patrol vans unloaded nearly 100 immigrants at the Gospel Rescue Mission on Friday, the Las Cruces Sun News reported.
The city issued a request for donations of blankets, clothing, food, toiletries, water, towels and foam for bedding to help provide for the waves of people as they filled up shelters, churches, and a recreation center.
Another 78 immigrants were brought into the city before noon on Saturday, and at least 160 more arrived on Sunday, the Las Cruces Sun News reported.