- Sheriffs from across the U.S. called out liberal sanctuary cities for complaining about having to deal with illegal migrants in interviews with the Daily Caller News Foundation.
- Democratic leaders of the cities declared crises and emergencies over the issue, but the sheriffs said that it’s nothing compared to what they deal with as a result of the border crisis in their counties.
- “It’s an example of just the height of hypocrisy much like I’m seeing in my local community. We have people of that mind that think basically ‘anywhere but my backyard,'” Culpeper County, Virginia, Sheriff Scott H. Jenkins told the DCNF.
Sheriffs from across the U.S. slammed the Democratic leaders of several sanctuary cities for complaining about receiving illegal migrants from the southern border, they told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
“It’s an example of just the height of hypocrisy much like I’m seeing in my local community. We have people of that mind that think basically ‘anywhere but my backyard,'” Culpeper County, Virginia, Sheriff Scott H. Jenkins told the DCNF Friday. (RELATED: Two Busloads Of Illegal Migrants Arrive At Kamala Harris’ Residence)
Republican Govs. Greg Abbott of Texas, Doug Ducey of Arizona and Ron DeSantis of Florida have been sending illegal migrants to Democratic cities.
DeSantis flew two planes of illegal migrants to Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, Wednesday. The island has been scrambling to support the group of around 50 illegal migrants and the state has deployed 125 members of the National Guard to provide support amid a local “humanitarian crisis.”
The island was moving migrants to Cape Cod on Thursday after they had arrived around 24 hours before. The town dubbed itself a “sanctuary destination” shortly after President Donald Trump took office, according to PBS.
The Republican transports have drawn the ire of Democrats and the media.
“I am deeply contemplating taking a busload of New Yorkers to go to Texas and do some good ol’ fashion door knocking,” New York City Mayor Eric Adams warned in August, “because we have to — for the good of America, we have to get him [Abbott] out of office.”
Mayor Lori Lightfoot in Chicago questioned Abbott’s faith as a Christian after he bused a few hundred illegal migrants to her city and Mayor Muriel Bowser of Washington, D.C., said the Republican governors were “tricking” migrants into boarding buses to the Nation’s Capital, which illegal migrants who spoke to the DCNF said wasn’t true.
Meanwhile, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) authorities have encountered over 1.9 million migrants at the southern border between Oct. 2021 and July 2022, according to agency statistics.
Although Jenkins’ county is over 1,000 miles from the border, he says he’s felt direct effects of the open border, such as cartel violence.
“I have active drug cartel activity in my county. An hour from the White House, cartel activity is doing human trafficking, sex trafficking, drugs, sales of weapons, we have it all,” Jenkins said. “We have shootings that are occurring with ranking cartel members from Texas that are here in our community.”
“It’s happening in every community,” Jenkins explained. “So, it’s time for America to wake up and realize it’s not a southwest border issue or a Texas, Arizona issue, it’s every county is a border county.”
Terrell County, Texas, Sheriff Thaddeus Cleveland patrols an area along the border, where smugglers commonly use the rugged terrain to their advantage.
“It doesn’t compare at all,” Cleveland said of the complaints from Democrat leaders. “We’ve been dealing with this for as long as I’ve been in Border Patrol, 26 years, and really our border communities for many more years prior to this.”
“This idea of using buses, it’s not new, but it’s getting them out of our backyard and getting them into someone else’s backyard,” Cleveland said.
Migrants gather after being flown in from Texas on a flight funded by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis at Edgartown, Massachusetts, U.S. September 15, 2022. Vineyard Gazette/Handout via REUTERS THIS IMAGE HAS BEEN SUPPLIED BY A THIRD PARTY.
Sheriff Billy A. Merrifield from Rio Arriba County, New Mexico, has personally dealt with the issue of open borders with the loss of his daughter to illicit fentanyl.
Border authorities have seized around 10,600 pounds of fentanyl so far in fiscal year 2022, according to CBP.
“Not having that protection, not having that support or not having that deterrent down at our borders, no matter what it’s trickling through all of our states,” Merrifield told the DCNF, adding “There’s no stop to it.”
“We need our executive, our legislative and our judiciary branches to work together to find a deterrent to change law so it gives us the ability as law enforcement to hold to accountability those folks that want to bring drugs across,” Merrifield said.
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