Americans Want DOJ to Punish Sanctuary Cities for Refusing to Enforce Immigration Law

According to a new poll, voters want the Justice Department to get tough on so-called sanctuary cities that refuse to enforce immigration laws. A new Rasmussen Reports survey finds 62 percent of likely voters say the DOJ should take legal action against cities that provide sanctuary for illegal immigrants.

The murder of 32-year-old Kate Steinle by an illegal alien who was taking “sanctuary” in San Francisco has now put the open borders crowd in the hot seat this week. Francisco Sanchez, the 45-year-old man who has confessed to Steinle’s murder, had been released from jail in March after San Francisco authorities didn’t honor an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detainer request.

FOX News host Bill O’Reilly has been pushing hard to get the Republican Congress to pass “Kate’s Law,” which would impose a mandatory minimum five year sentence on a criminal illegal immigrant caught in the country after being deported. Reps. Matt Salmon, R-Ariz., and Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., have been crafting the measure and writing amendments to cut off funding for sanctuary cities.

Americans support the idea by a wide margin.

Fifty-eight percent believe the federal government should cut off funds to cities that provide sanctuary for illegal immigrants, while just 32 percent disagree and 10 percent are not sure. The majority includes a majority of voters in nearly every demographic bloc who agree with both the Justice Department taking action against sanctuary cities and the government cutting off all aid to those cities.

There are over 200 sanctuary cities nationwide in addition to San Francisco, including major cities such as New York, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, Miami, Denver, Chicago, Philadelphia, Houston and Detroit.

Crossover, unsurprisingly, is significant in all demographics between the two issues.

Eighty-four percent of those who want the Justice Department to take legal action against sanctuary cities also favor a cut-off of all federal aid. Further, among the vast minority of voters opposed to legal action, 80 percent also oppose a funding cut-off.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump came under fire for comments about the criminality of many illegal immigrants, but American most voters think Trump is right. Democrats and fellow Republicans alike thought it politically expedient to take The Donald down, but another recent poll from Rasmussen Reports suggest they’re a bit out of touch.

Yet, 53 percent of all voters — including 76 percent of Republicans — agree with Trump’s comments and say illegal immigration increases the level of serious crime in America.

“Most voters expect biased media coverage of the 2016 presidential race, and the media response to recent immigration comments by Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump is a good case in point,” says Fran Coombs, the managing editor of Rasmussen Reports.

“Clinton, still by far the leading candidate for next year’s Democratic presidential nomination, said recently that President Obama’s plan to protect up to five million illegal immigrants from immigration doesn’t go far enough,” Coombs added, noting that both of Clinton’s “positions are outside the mainstream as far as most voters are concerned.”

Only 34 percent favor Obama’s immigration amnesty, while 55 percent are opposed.

As they have for years, most voters (63%) think gaining control of the border is more important than legalizing the status of undocumented workers already living in the United States. While that’s up just two points from January, it is the highest level of support for border control since December 2011.

The survey of 1,000 Likely U.S. Voters was conducted on July 8-9, 2015 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence.