Morning Wire - How Sanctuary Policies Led to LA Riots | 6.14.25

Episode Date: June 14, 2025

Riots erupt in sanctuary cities as the policies they support lead to clashes with ICE. FAIR’s Hannah Davis breaks down how these policies escalate chaos and endanger public safety. Get the facts first on Morning Wire. To read more from the FAIR report visit this link: https://www.fairus.org/issues/sanctuary-policies Beam: Visit https://shopbeam.com/WIRE and use code WIRE to get our exclusive discount of up to 40% off.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The anti-ice riots in L.A., San Francisco, Seattle, and other deep blue cities this week have shined a glaring spotlight on sanctuary policies. These jurisdictions refuse to work with federal officials to detain criminal illegal immigrants and often take steps to actively obstruct ice operations. In this episode, we sit down with an expert to discuss the explosion of these sanctuary jurisdictions in recent years and their impact on public safety and national security. I'm Daily Wire Executive Editor John Bickley with Georgia House. it's Saturday, June 14th, and this is a weekend edition of Morning Wire. When my sleep is off, it felt like I couldn't show up as my best self. I spent night after night tossing and turning, waking up exhausted, and making it hard to keep up with the latest headlines. That's when I found Beam's dream powder.

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Your report found that California districts are among the most extreme examples of these sanctuary policies. First, big picture, how do these jurisdictions work against ICE and federal officials? At the root of it, a sanctuary jurisdiction is going to obstruct

federal immigration agencies from enforcing federal immigration law. And so that can be seen in a plethora of ways, namely, not honoring ICE detainers or ensuring that, ICE agents aren't allowed into a jail system or a courthouse or instructing local law enforcement to not communicate with ICE agencies. And California is particularly egregious. They have a statewide policy and then multiple counties and cities have sanctuary policies in place that are

anti-cooperation with ICE agents. Now, your team recently published a major report on sanctuary cities that underscores the public safety and national security implications of these policies. Can you unpack that more for us, the safety and security issues at play here? I think L.A. is a real-time example of how sanctuary policies have proliferated into anti-enforcement and anti-cooperation, and then it takes to the streets. You know, if L.A. didn't have sanctuary policies, immigration officials would be able to, in a controlled environment, go into the jail system in California and obtain the criminal illegal alien that they're seeking. But because they have sanctuary policies, they have to risk their lives and do very dangerous raids and sweeps,

which a lot of times have a lot of negative media feedback in it. And it goes to a security issue where we're seeing right now in L.A. and across the nation. I mean, you mentioned other cities in California, but we're seeing it in Baltimore, North Carolina, you know, these anti-sanctuary places are having raids and protests, and it really does put the lives of ice agents in danger. Now, that argument ties directly to the PR battles we're seeing between Democrats and Republicans this week over who's really to blame for escalating the situation. Democrats say it's ice for coming into cities to arrest criminal illegals, but the Trump administration says it's actually the sanctuary policies that are escalating things. So is the administration correct them?

I think that's exactly right. That's fair stance. You know, People deserve to feel safe in their communities. And I know a lot of people are cracking down on the current administration for using Marines or the National Guard to kind of subsidize enforcement in these sanctuary jurisdictions. But it's because of the rioting and it's because of the protests that people don't feel safe taking their children to school or going to work. And because of that, you know, the Trump administration is using military force to assist ICE and to assist local police officers. They're overwhelmed, and that's going to probably continue to happen. And it's only because of sanctuary policies that are already in place that were seeing the results of them. As you highlighted, there's a number of these jurisdictions across the country.

And your research team looked into the history of sanctuary cities. In the 1990s, there was only a few, and now there's hundreds. What did you guys find in terms of the growth of this movement? Yeah. So back in 2018 was when Fair did its last report, and we found a little over 550. So it's been a few years, but as of May of 2025, we found 103 sanctuary jurisdictions across the U.S., which is a sobering assessment of what's going on in our nation. And unfortunately, what began as a small movement initially surrounding the concept that non-citizens should be able to report crimes to local law enforcement without fear of deportation has been emboldening radical opposition to the enforcement of federal immigration policy. So how do these cities get away with us? Federal authority is supposed to trump, you know, state level authority when it comes to immigration in particular. It seems like a clear cut argument from the federal side. How can it be that we have over a thousand, you say, jurisdictions? And they've also maintained these policies for several years. That's a great question. You're exactly right. Federal law makes it very clear the law of the land takes precedent over any conflicting state or local policy, including immigration policy. And as easily as states are enacted,

anti-sanctuary policies, states are enacting pro-sanctuary policies. And so I think it just takes a strong commander-in-chief to crack down on sanctuary policies. And it takes the state itself to actually care, to care about its constituents, to care about public safety, and crack down on the jurisdictions that have sanctuary policies within them. I mean, we found in this report that there are multiple states that already have anti-sanctuary laws on the books, statewide policies, but they still have jurisdictions within them that are operating as a sanctuary. And so hopefully this report can be used as a blueprint for those states to go after those jurisdictions. So it really has been a question of having leadership who's willing to highlight the fact that these are

unconstitutional laws. Yes, yes, leadership at the state level and the federal level. So there's the leadership and then there's the legal front. What does your organization fare? What do you advocate for in terms of legal action that can be taken to better protect public safety and national security? Essentially, the continuous of what's been going on. We need states to use our report, to track these jurisdictions and to go after them, to enact

anti-sanctuary policy at the statewide level, to actually put enforcement mechanisms in their policies, to put teeth in them. I think Indiana serves as a good blueprint for states to follow. They've been getting it right. The AG in Indiana realized that he's got jurisdictions in a state that aren't abiding by their statewide anti-sanctuary policy. And so we released letters and warnings to them and said, hey, I'm going to crack down on you. I'll see you in court if you don't pay attention and listen and redact your policies.

And most of them did. Now, they weren't 100% successful in eradicating all of the jurisdictions, but for the majority of them, they did change their policies. And if other states followed Indiana or even Florida or Texas in pushing and enacting strong anti-sanctuary legislation at the state level, the next time Fair does one of these lists, I would venture that the amount of sanctuary jurisdictions would be a lot lower than it is now. What about when you have governors like Gavin Newsom and Tim Walls who are openly defying the Trump administration? What has to happen then from the federal side if you're not going to have it from the top of the state?

Yeah, that's a great question. From the federal side, going after states that continue to have sanctuary jurisdictions proliferate or continue to crack down on anti-sanctuary jurisdictions within their sanctuary state is a big issue. And what the federal government can do is withhold funding. And that's something that I know that the Trump administration had a legal battle with his last term. But I think that if he goes after funding, if he withhold state funding from states that have sanctuary policies, the power is in the purse. And I think a lot of states might change their tune. Now, that's not a promise and it's not guaranteed, but it's something that they could do to start cracking down on them.

Now, in your research, has your team found a clear correlation between these, sanctuary jurisdictions and illegal immigrant crime or other data that would really back up the public safety side of your argument? Yeah. Not inherently correlated, but it's, you can, there's definitely been a trend when it comes to sanctuary cities. They incentivize illegal immigration, and then because of that, they have a higher population, and with a higher population comes higher crime. But even in states like Georgia, you know, where women can't go for runs without being murdered by a criminal illegal alien who is here illegally, and then is residing in a sanctuary jurisdiction. So, yes, we've seen that throughout a couple years now where states that tend to have high population

of illegal aliens does correlate to crime. And usually those illegal aliens came in under the Biden administration and they're harbored because they're in a sanctuary state. They feel safe to commit crimes. And that's something that we have seen a trend, yes. Final question, one that's very close to home, if you will. You mentioned that some of these sanctuary cities are found in states that already have laws against them.

Here in our hometown of Nashville, we have officials trying to maintain sanctuary policies against state law. So how is this possible in a deep red state like Tennessee that you could still have its biggest city via sanctuary city? Yeah, that was one of the most eye-opening thing here at Fair when we were doing the report is that inherently southern states, predominantly conservative states, and Tennessee is a great example because they actually already have an anti-sanctuary provision on the books, but they still have four jurisdictions. How is it falling under their nose that way? And it's interesting to see. But I don't think all hope is lost for Tennessee. You know, Marsha Blackburn, Senator Blackburn is breathing down the neck of the Nashville mayor's noncompliance.

She's called on the DOJ to openly investigate him for doxing ICE agents and releasing their information publicly. the governor of Tennessee recently passed anti-sanctuary legislation that makes it a class E felony, if any jurisdiction votes for sanctuary policies. And so things like that prove that Tennessee, regardless of the fact that there are a few jurisdictions within the volunteer state, have gone the right way. They've implemented policies at the state level. They've got senators cracking down on mayors. And I think by the next time, Fair has one of these reports, Tennessee might not even be on the list because of how few they already had and how they're cracking down. They're following in the blueprints of Indiana, as I mentioned earlier, following the blueprint of Texas and Florida.

And that's the best thing that any state across the nation should do right now. That's the only thing they can do is crack down on these sanctuary jurisdictions. I'm sure there are a lot of people hoping that proves to be true. Hannah, thank you so much for joining us. All right. Thanks for having me. That was Fair Policy analyst Hannah Davis, and this has been a weekend edition of Morning Wire.