In an effort to stand against the asylum laws in the country, President Trump threatened to transport illegal aliens into sanctuary cities in states like New York City and California. In a tweet posted by Trump over the weekend, he said: “The USA has the absolute legal right to have apprehended illegal immigrants transferred to Sanctuary Cities. We hereby demand that they be taken care of at the highest level, especially by the State of California, which is well known for it’s poor management & high taxes!”
Mayors of sanctuary cities, like Mayor Libby Schaaf of Oakland, California, have answered Trump’s threat by saying that they plan on allowing any illegal alien into their city that needs help, regardless if they’re already struggling homelessness as it is. As of right now, there are close to 38,000 homeless American veterans lying on the street. “Oakland welcomes all, no matter where you came from or how you got here,” wrote Mayor Libby Schaaf on Twitter.
In 2017, there were well over 2,500 homeless citizens in Oakland, which was a 25% increase compared to two years before. In Alameda County as a whole, there are approximately 5,630 homeless citizens. And unfortunately, in all of California, there are almost 130,000 homeless people, which includes nearly 11,000 homeless Veterans.
Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York City, which has become a sanctuary city, criticized President Trump for his plan at the beginning, claiming that Trump was using illegal immigrants as “chess pieces,” but he later agreed with giving illegal immigrants driver’s licenses in order to bring more illegal immigrants into the state of New York. Online, de Blasio wrote: “Undocumented immigrants are our neighbors and part of the backbone of our economy. It’s mind-boggling that they aren’t allowed to have driver’s licenses in New York State.”
Ever since the Great Depression in the 1930s, the homelessness in New York City has reached an all-time high. As of right now, there are close to 64,000 homeless people in New York City, which includes more than 15,000 families with almost 23,000 homeless children. Out of the entire country, New York City has the largest metro area homeless population. In New York State, there are 1,200 homeless veterans.
When the mayors of the sanctuary cities in Philadephia, Chicago, and Cambridge, Mass. were interviewed by the Daily Beast, they explained that their jurisdiction would be more than happy to allow illegal immigrants into their cities.
Cambridge, Chicago, and Philadelphia have a homeless population of at least 12,000 residents. In just Massachusetts, there are currently more than 20,000 homeless citizens, including close to 1,000 veterans. The mayor of Philadephia, Jim Kenney, said: “The city would be prepared to welcome these immigrants just as we have embraced our immigrant communities for decades.”
The mayor of Chicago, Rahm Emanuel, said: “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 and just as we welcome Rohingya refugees fleeing genocide in Myanmar.”
Mayor Miro Weinberger from Burlington, Vermont said that illegal immigrants were vital to making his city “more diverse” and “more prosperous.” Weinberger also said: “We know from decades of experience that newcomers to Burlington will make us more prosperous, more diverse and stronger, just as generations of past immigrants have driven our past growth and success.”
Across the board, there are over 550,000 residents in the United States that are homeless. At the same time, the United States allows more than 1.5 million legal and illegal immigrants into the country every single year. The majority of those people are workers competing against the poor, working-class Americans. Economists have found that the mass immigration policy enforced by Washington D.C. drives up housing costs for Americans.
