Enclaves a menace to public safety.

By Mark Krikorian

Sanctuary cities are a menace to public safety. A recent move in the House of Representatives to cut their funding is long overdue.

There are more than 300 sanctuary jurisdictions nationwide, including cities like New York, counties like Chicago's Cook County, and even whole states like California. These jurisdictions refuse to cooperate with immigration authorities and release deportable criminals back onto the streets.

In 2014, more than 9,000 criminals who entered the country illegally and whom the Department of Homeland Security wanted to deport were released instead because of local sanctuary policies, according to the department's records.

More than 2,000 of them went on to commit new crimes, including murder, sexual assault on young children, rape, burglary, assault, dangerous drug offenses and drunken driving. Many are still at large.

One of the many American victims of sanctuary policies was Kathryn Steinle, killed last year by a felon whom San Francisco refused to turn over to immigration authorities for return to his home country.

Another was high school football star Jamiel Shaw Jr., murdered in 2008 by a gang member in the country illegally and protected by Los Angeles' notorious Special Order 40, one of the nation's first sanctuary measures.

Congress prohibited local sanctuary policies in 1996 as an intrusion on the federal role in immigration enforcement, but the law had no teeth.

The best way to get compliance is to cut off federal funding to jurisdictions that continue to defy federal law. Half-hearted attempts have been made in the past to do this in budget bills but none have been successful.

That may change. Rep. John Culberson (R., Texas), chairman of the House subcommittee in charge of funding for the Department of Justice, recently wrote the attorney general demanding, among other things, that three grant programs that give more than $1 billion to state and local governments be made off-limits to sanctuary jurisdictions.

As he noted in his letter, "Communities that do not work with federal law enforcement officials, in violation of federal law, should not expect to receive federal grant funding from the Department of Justice."

In addition, the congressman made clear that he and his Senate counterpart, Richard Shelby (R., Ala.), would use their authority over Justice Department spending to pressure the administration. This matters because federal agencies often need to "reprogram" funds - in other words, use them for a different purpose than specified in the original budget bill.

This can only be done with the prior approval of the relevant House and Senate committees. Culberson has said no reprogramming requests for Justice Department headquarters funds would be approved until sanctuary funding is cut off.

Culberson successfully used this tool last year to get the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives to drop a proposed ban on a certain kind of ammunition sought by gun-control advocates.

The fiscal year ends Sept. 30, so it's possible that the Obama administration will somehow make it until then without having to go to Culberson for "reprogramming" approval. But if he keeps his word and includes a sanctuary cities ban in next year's budget bill, it could set up a conflict if Senate Democrats choose to filibuster it or the president vetoes it.

That could actually be a useful fight to have, with one side working to deport criminals in the country illegally and the other working to protect them.

Laura Wilkerson, whose son Joshua was brutally murdered by a criminal in the country illegally, told a Senate hearing last fall: "I don't want the sympathy. I want you to do something."

She's right. Doing something about the scandal of sanctuary cities is long overdue.

Mark Krikorian is executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies (www.cis.org).