ArcaMax

From New York to Chicago and the Denver suburbs, migrant gangs are mugging, raping, robbing stores, running brothels next door to elementary schools, and threatening apartment dwellers with guns to take over residential buildings, all without fear of being deported. The gangs are turning neighborhoods into hellholes.

Blame insane "sanctuary" laws.

The word "sanctuary" sounds charitable. Don't be fooled. It doesn't mean welcoming the downtrodden. It actually bars police from sharing arrest information with Immigration and Customs Enforcement so that the agency can take illegals arrested for violent crimes into custody and deport them.

Sanctuary laws shield criminals from removal. Eleven states and some 600 towns and cities, mostly controlled by Democrats, have them. Because of these laws, migrant lawbreakers go through the revolving-door justice system and are back on the streets to strike again.

Americans have a choice: On Saturday, presidential candidate Donald Trump promised to work with Congress to outlaw sanctuary jurisdictions.

The other choice is Vice President Kamala Harris. Though she's apparently taken a vow of silence on her policy positions, her record shows San Franciscans died because of her policies on migrant crime when she was the city's district attorney.

In 2008, Edwin Ramos, an illegal from El Salvador, murdered a man and his two sons. Prior to the triple murder, Ramos had a history of juvenile arrests for assault and attempted robbery. Had San Francisco police cooperated with federal immigration authorities, Ramos might have been deported instead of left free to kill.

It's a similar story for Rony Aguilera, an illegal from Honduras, who murdered Ivan Miranda. He had had several earlier run-ins with police but was still in San Francisco, ready to kill.

A New York Times feature, published Sunday, claims "Harris cracked down on violent offenders" but conveniently omits any mention of Ramos, Aguilera and their victims.

As a U.S. Senator, Harris in 2017 voted against a bill to increase penalties for criminals who repeatedly enter the country illegally after being deported and commit more crimes.

Then in 2019, when Harris launched her first campaign for president, she filled out an American Civil Liberties Union questionnaire and stated that local law enforcement should "not act as federal immigration agents."

She also wrote that as attorney general she told California law enforcement that "they did not have to comply with ICE detainers," meaning they could ignore federal requests to hold migrant suspects for deportation.

These same policies are now causing migrant crime to explode. Seven Colorado counties in the clutches of the Venezuelan prison gang Tren de Aragua are suing to overturn sanctuary laws that prevent local police from cooperating with ICE to send gang members packing.

New York's sanctuary laws have enabled the same Venezuelan gang to set up headquarters in migrant shelters across the five boroughs and terrorize the public without fear of being deported.

Crime victims can thank their own woke politicians.

Mayor Eric Adams has called for amending the city's laws. But the far-left City Council isn't budging.

On Friday, House Republicans offered a bill to withhold federal aid for migrants from sanctuary jurisdictions. Outrageously, Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) opposed it, claiming it would "scapegoat immigrants." That's partisan blather. Police estimate that as many as 75% of arrests for assault and robbery in midtown Manhattan -- Nadler's district -- are recently arrived migrants.

On Saturday, Trump pledged to "hunt down and capture every single gang member ... that is being illegally harbored." A tall order, but the place to start is allowing local police to cooperate with ICE.

Sanctuary laws must be overturned.

Trump tried it by executive order in 2017, cutting funding to sanctuary jurisdictions, but was hit with a slew of legal challenges from blue-state politicians and a 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that only Congress, not the president, can impose terms on how federal money is spent. If Trump wins in November, he plans to avoid legal roadblocks by asking Congress to help. The election will determine whether that strategy can succeed.

One thing is certain: If Kamala wins, so do the gangs. As border czar she let them in, and as president she'd shield them from deportation.

Under a Harris presidency, plan to bolt your doors, hold onto your wallets, and stay guarded as you walk around your neighborhood -- until it's no longer walkable.

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Betsy McCaughey is a former lieutenant governor of New York and chairman of the Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths. Follow her on Twitter @Betsy_McCaughey. To find out more about Betsy McCaughey and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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