Number of 'sanctuary cities' rise as 170 new jurisdictions pop up across US

There has been a sharp rise in the number of so-called "sanctuary cities" around the country, with a reported 170 more areas added to the map. The update to the map comes amid the ongoing border crisis under the Biden-Harris administration.

According to a report from the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), an updated "sanctuary" map shows about 170 new areas becoming sanctuaries for those coming into the country illegally. Since 2015, CIS has been tracking the number of sanctuaries in the US as those areas with defined local and/or state ordinances that prevent law enforcement agencies from cooperating fully with Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to gain custody over illegal immigrants arrested for local crimes.  

ICE has for many years been tracking the localities that do not cooperate with the agency and CIS first published its map of sanctuaries in 2015 after obtaining data through a FOIA request. The states with the highest number of sanctuary locales added to the map from CIS include Virginia, North Dakota, Nebraska, New York, and Minnesota. 

Some of the examples of criminal illegal immigrants who have re-offended after being released by a sanctuary state include, Fairfax County, Virginia, where police arrested a Honduran man in July 2023 for a child sex crime and was released from jail despite having an ICE detainer placed on him. In February 2024, he was arrested again for child sex crimes and released on a $10,000 bond. 

Additionally, police in Chelsea, Massachusetts took a Guatemalan man into custody for operating a vehicle under the influence of liquor for the fourth time. Some of the new listings of sanctuary cities or states includes all of North Dakota, as none of its 24 corrections facilities cooperate with ICE fully. Viriginia now has 27 more additional counties and cities now listed, Nebraska has 21 new counties, and one city now listed, and New York has 13 additional counties listed. 

To counteract some municipalities becoming sanctuary cities, some state governments have taken action to enforce anti-sanctuary city measures, however in the states of South Carolina, Indiana, Georgia, Idaho, Kansas and North Carolina where this is the case, jurisdictions were still added to the map.