BY MATT MAYER – According to a recent study, roughly 100,000 illegal immigrants could have fled Arizona since passage of SB 1070. The Mexican government reported that almost 25,000 illegal immigrants returned to Mexico following passage of the law. As we stated in “Controlling Illegal Immigration: State and Local Governments Must Do More”, under the Constitution, states and cities have considerable powers to deal with the illegal immigration within their jurisdictions.
Our work (along with many others) to guide states and localities resulted in SB1070. More states are looking to follow Arizona’s lead. With the exodus occurring in Arizona, other states should make sure they don’t become the next home for those fleeing Arizona.
Conversely, the Center for Immigration Studies released a report showing that $62.2 million in federal funds were sent to sanctuary cities to cover the costs of illegal immigrants. As pointed out by CIS, these sanctuary cities welcome illegal immigrants, but quickly ask the rest of the country to subsidize the costs of those policies. As we saw with welfare benefits in the 1980s and 1990s, people quickly figured out where to go based on the level of benefits they could get and somehow managed to find the money to get to those places.
It wouldn’t be too big of a surprise to learn that the illegal immigrants fleeing Arizona have gone to the sanctuary cities whose policies the rest of us subsidize.
Matt Mayer wrote this for Heritage.org