Sanctuary cites may have existed pre-Biden, but they weren’t making a big deal about it, so few illegal aliens would have known they existed.
DeBlasio and his bi sexual wife advertised NYC’s sanctuary status almost daily. Heck there are L&O SVU episodes where it’s featured and the ICE guys are the villains. The numbers of course were smaller and ICE could be seen as picking on some poor undocumented. Now the reality of the numbers is overwhelming causing reactions like Biden’s interview and Adams’ declaring NYC is no longer a sanctuary.
Not so. I have worked as a member of a grassroots immigration group since 2008 lobbying on the Hill and the legislative branch in the Commonwealth of Virginia.
The movement that established sanctuary cities in the United States began in the early 1980s. Chicago became a sanctuary city in 1985. We tried to prevent federal funds from being sent to cities and states that were not cooperating with the federal immigration authorities.
In 2021, the Department of Justice gave out approximately $300 million to sanctuary jurisdictions under three funding programs — the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program (SCAAP), the Byrne Justice Assistance Grants (JAG), and the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) program. The awards to sanctuaries represented more than 40 percent of the available funding under these programs. Sanctuary jurisdictions are receiving this funding despite having adopted policies to hinder cooperation between local law enforcement agencies and federal immigration authorities. As a result, the federal government is subsidizing agencies that may be violating federal law and undermining public safety.
https://cis.org/Report/Still-Subsidizing-Sanctuaries