Trump faces nationwide resistance, city leaders say they will protect immigrants

The aftermath of the US election has been shaken, and the issue of illegal immigration continues to ferment. After Trump announced that he would deport millions of illegal immigrants with criminal records, mayors of major cities in the United States said they would “shelter” immigrants. The “offensive and defensive battle” between the US federal government and local governments on immigration issues has begun. According to the British Independent on November 17, mayors of many major cities in the United States have promised to resist President-elect Trump’s measures to deport illegal immigrants. Democratic mayors of New York, Chicago, Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, New Jersey, Philadelphia and Providence have promised to protect residents of these cities from being deported. These cities have about 18.5 million foreign immigrants, accounting for about 1/17 of the total US population. Except for Los Angeles, all of the above cities will become “sanctuary cities.” Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti did not use the term “sanctuary city”, saying that “sanctuary city” is difficult to define, but promised that Los Angeles will not use police force to help enforce the policy unless a judge orders it to do so. “Sanctuary cities” generally refer to cities that do not cooperate with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency and take a laissez-faire attitude towards arrested illegal immigrants instead of handing them over to the immigration authorities. It is said that there are about 300 such local jurisdictions in the United States. It is estimated that there are currently about 820,000 illegal immigrants with criminal records in the United States, including those who are considered to have criminal records simply because they illegally immigrated to the United States. During the campaign, Trump said that he would abolish “sanctuary cities” and vowed to withhold millions of dollars in federal funds allocated to them if states and cities do not cooperate with the authorities. But it is difficult to determine whether Trump’s actions are legal now, because U.S. law stipulates that federal funds can only be canceled if states and cities directly refuse to cooperate with projects related to federal funds. For example, funds used for education and economic investment cannot be withheld for refusing to cooperate in the implementation of deportation orders.