A report released by the Center for Immigration Studies on Tuesday revealed that 56 percent of illegal immigrants in the country, or 8 million people, live in so-called “sanctuary jurisdictions,” which are states that are “refusing to or prohibiting agencies from complying with ICE detainers, imposing unreasonable conditions on detainer acceptance, denying ICE access to interview incarcerated aliens, or otherwise impeding communication or information exchanges between their personnel and federal immigration officers.”
Topping the list is California, with 21.8 percent of illegal immigrants living there. This is followed by New York, at 6.2 percent, New Jersey, at 4.1 percent, Illinois, at 3.8 percent, and Washington, at 2.7 percent.
Additionally, 5.9 percent of illegal immigrants live in “sanctuary localities within non-sanctuary states,” and 5.4 percent live in a combination of three states, Maryland, New Mexico, and Virginia, which are “states treated as sanctuaries.”
This comes as President-elect Donald Trump has pledged to conduct mass deportations under his second term in the White House. In California, cities such as Los Angeles have said that they will not comply, with new LAPD Chief of Police Jim McDonnell saying that “LAPD will protect our immigrant community, LAPD officers will not take action to determine a person’s immigration status, and will not arrest someone for their status, and LAPD will not assist with mass deportations.”