The Theory and Practice of Sanctuary Cities and States

Peloni:  Fantastic analysis by Linda Goudsmit

by Linda Goudsmit | January 25, 2026

I began publishing a series of humanitarian hoax articles in July 2017, each article beginning with the same dire warning paragraph:

The humanitarian hoax is the deliberate and deceitful tactic of presenting a destructive policy as altruistic. The humanitarian huckster presents himself as a compassionate advocate when in fact he is the disguised enemy.

I identified former president Barack Hussein Obama as the huckster-in-chief and by October 2019, after reaching 50 hoaxes, decided to publish the collection as a book. The Book of Humanitarian Hoaxes: Killing America with ‘Kindness’ was released in June 2020.

It is now January 2026 and time to examine the consequences of the humanitarian hoax policies launched by humanitarian huckster-in-chief Obama during his deceitful 2008-2016 tenure. I have reprinted Hoax 9 below for its historical context.

H OA X  9

The humanitarian hoax is the deliberate and deceitful tactic of presenting a destructive policy as altruistic. The humanitarian huckster presents himself as a compassionate advocate when in fact he is the disguisedenemy.

Barack Obama, humanitarian huckster-in-chief, weakened the United States for eight years by persuading America to accept his obstructive, politically correct sanctuary city policies as altruistic when in fact they were designed to destabilize and destroy civil society.

The term “sanctuary city” originated in the 1980s when San Francisco passed a city ordinance forbidding citypolice and city magistrates from assisting federal immigration officers in enforcing immigration policies that denied asylum to refugees from Guatemala and El Salvador. The mission of the sanctuary city was to protect innocent refugees from deportation—although these immigrants were in the United States illegally, they had not committed any other crimes.

Today [2017], sanctuary cities are actually sanctuary jurisdictions because they include cities, counties, and, probably soon, states. Over 300 sanctuary jurisdictions exist in America today, actively hindering federal authorities in their ability to seize illegal criminal aliens, rapists, murderers, terrorists, and drug dealers for deportation.

The shocking murder of twenty-one-year-old Kate Steinle on July 1, 2015, publicized the danger of sanctuary jurisdictions. The shooter, Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez, an illegal immigrant from Mexico with seven felony convictions, had been deported five times and intentionally sought shelter in San Francisco. Yet officials in “sanctuary city” San Francisco refused to turn him over to federal authorities for deportation and instead released him into society, enabling him to kill Kate Steinle.

The three Muslim migrant boys ages 7, 10, and 14 who sexually assaulted, raped, and urinated in the mouth ofan innocent five-year-old girl in Twin Falls, Idaho, on June 24, 2016, were protected as well. No jail time, nodeportation. Instead, according to a courtroom observer, they were found guilty of lewd conduct and placed on probation. These monsters were shielded by the mainstream media and local city officials, who tried tocover up the case and pretend that Twin Falls was a model for multiculturalism. Wendy Olson, Obama-appointed U.S. attorney for Idaho, stunned the country by threatening to prosecute Idahoans who spoke out about the heinous crime in ways SHE considered “false or inflammatory.”

Judge Thomas Borresen issued an equally stunning gag order that denied the right of anyone in the courtroom to speak about the sentencing even AFTER the case ended. Mathew Staver, chairman and co-founder of the nonprofit legal assistance agency Liberty Counsel, says the ruling is completely illegal. “Case law isclear,” he says. “You cannot gag someone after the case is over.”

Twin Falls is one of two Muslim refugee relocation centers in Idaho. Rather than identifying itself as a “sanctuary city,” Twin Falls has chosen the equally disingenuous name of “welcoming city” and declared itself to be a “neighborly community.” REALLY? Protecting rapists and censoring free speech is definitely not neighborly for the victims!

The word sanctuary implies safety from a threat; it does not mean shelter for immigrant criminal felons, rapists, murderers, and terrorists who threaten the safety of law-abiding citizens. Why would any law-abiding citizenendorse the protection of these criminals, whether they are illegal aliens or legal citizens? The answer lies inthe active participation by the mainstream media in the Humanitarian Hoax of Sanctuary Cities. The media have deliberately romanticized sanctuary cities as humanitarian havens for the oppressed instead of honestlyreporting them as despicable safety zones for criminal aliens. The colluding media have duped the trustingAmerican public and exploited their compassion and goodwill.

The original mission of sanctuary cities has been perverted from the protection of innocent refugees into theprotection of guilty criminal aliens at the expense of public safety. Sanctuary cities in America continue to flagrantly defy federal law. Thirty years after San Francisco became the first sanctuary city, Californiaseeks to become the first sanctuary state.

The protection of illegal aliens from deportation incentivizes illegal entry into the United States, which hasenormous economic and political consequences. Illegal aliens overload our welfare system, cost American taxpayers a whopping $116 billion per year, and rob Americans of their jobs.

Barack Obama gave sanctuary jurisdictions the freedom to ignore detention orders from the federal agency Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) with his June 2015 executive action establishing the Priority Enforcement Program, allowing local agencies to ignore ICE notifications of deportable aliens in their custody.

To understand Obama’s motive, simply look at the benefits to Democrats of increasing the number of illegal aliens:

• Secures more Democrat votes for the leftist agenda. Elected leftist Democrats will grant illegals immunityto vote legally and eventually grant them citizenship, knowing they will vote Democrat and ensure Democrat leadership for the foreseeable future.
• Creates social chaos by importing populations with hostile cultural norms.
• Creates divisiveness by taking American jobs.
• Alienates legal citizens, who receive far fewer government benefits than do illegal aliens.
• Eventually collapses the economies of sanctuary jurisdictions.

Obama’s executive action flagrantly violated 8 U.S.C. § 1373, a 1996 law requiring government entities and officials to cooperate with the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the predecessor of ICE.

Finally, in July 2016 Rep. John Culberson (R-Texas), chair of the Commerce, Justice, and Science Committee on Appropriations, took action against the danger and sent a letter to the Department of Justice demanding that federal law enforcement grants be denied to cities not in compliance with the 1996 law.

During the five years from 2011 to 2016, local and state governments received over $3.4 billion in federal lawenforcement grants. Rep. Culberson gave sanctuary jurisdictions a choice: either continue to receive the grantmoney or protect dangerous illegal criminal aliens. They could no longer do both.

Sanctuary jurisdictions doubled down and continue to defy the law. San Francisco and Santa Clara countieschallenged President Trump’s policy in court. In April 2017 U.S. District Judge William Orrick, an Obama appointee, issued a temporary ruling that blocked the president’s directive to withhold federal funding from cities that refuse to comply fully with federal immigration enforcement. The lawfare campaign designed to delay and disrupt President Trump’s America-first agenda was launched.

No-go zones are geographic areas within a country that brazenly disregard the laws of the country. No-go zones establish a two-tier system of justice within a country because they observe a different set of laws. All across Europe, Islamists have established religious no-go zones that recognize Islamic Sharia law exclusively.All across America, leftists have created sanctuary jurisdictions that flagrantly defy federal law.

People will stand quietly and peacefully in long lines until one person jumps the line. It is a fascinating socialdynamic that as long as members of a group abide by the same rules, the consequence is harmony. It is the unfairness of the line-jumper that creates anger and social chaos. Social chaos for seismic social change is the goal of the Leftist/Islamist axis that supports the two-tier system of justice created by secular sanctuary jurisdictions and religious no-go zones.

The globalist elite who fund the leftist humanitarian hucksters are desperate to block Trump’s policies that defund sanctuary jurisdictions. The colluding mainstream media continue to deceitfully portray leftist sanctuary jurisdictions as altruistic, denying that protecting illegal criminals at the expense of law-abiding Americans is a sinister leftist political tactic designed to destabilize and destroy America.

If the globalists are successful, the world will be returned to the dystopian existence of masters and slaves because a willfully blind American public was seduced by the Humanitarian Hoax of Sanctuary Cities. The humanitarian hoax will have succeeded in killing America with “kindness.”

END

In 2015 sanctuary jurisdictions numbered 300 cities, in 2026 the expansion of sanctuary jurisdictions now includes cities, counties, and states numbering:

• 200-300 sanctuary cities
• 300-400 sanctuary counties
• 17 sanctuary states including California, Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Utah, Vermont, and Washington + the District of Columbia.

As of late 2025 the proportion of Democrat-controlled vs. Republican-controlled cities, counties and states show a stunning correlation between Democrat control and sanctuary policies:

• 200-300 sanctuary cities = 94-97% Democrat-controlled, 3-6% Republican-controlled
• 300-400 sanctuary counties = 80-90% Democrat-controlled, 10-20% Republican-controlled
• 17 states = 82% (14) Democrat-controlled, 18% (3) Republican controlled

Chaired by Jim Jordan, the January 18, 2024, interim staff report of the Judiciary Committee discloses the catastrophic results of Biden’s open border policy. Titled, “New Data Reveal Worsening Magnitude of the Biden Border Crisis and Lack of Interior Immigration Enforcement,” shows an estimated 5,000 illegal aliens a day were released into the United States. The report reveals that during the two years between January 20, 2021, and August 31, 2023, over 5 million illegal aliens were released into the United States.

The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) estimates there are approximately 18.6 million illegal alien immigrants living in the United States as of March 2025.

The destructive radical leftist sanctuary policies launched by Barack Obama and advanced by Joe Biden continue to destabilize America and create chaos in every city, county, and state where they have been institutionalized. Obama’s particular deceit is word perversion. The word sanctuary is a powerful emotionally triggering word that generates virtuous feelings of empathy, compassion, protection, and shelter for the innocent. The problem, of course, is that illegally entering the United States is a crime, so there is no such thing as an innocent illegal alien. But we are no longer talking about illegal aliens who have committed no other crimes. Today we are discussing the illegal alien perpetrators of violent crimes.

Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton reports that President Trump’s nationwide March 2025 initiative, Operation Take Back America, “aims to repel the invasion of illegal immigration and protect American communities from perpetrators of violent crimes.”

The illegal aliens that President Trump is deporting in 2026 are criminals who have committed the most heinous crimes in America including murder, rape, promotion of child pornography, sexual assault of a child, burglary, drug trafficking, sex trafficking, arson, unlawful possession of a firearm, and domestic violence. Fitton explains that “Most are members of violent gangs, including the renowned Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13), Tren de Aragua, Latin Kings, 15th Street Gang, Sureños, Paisas and Tango Blast.”

What was the political motive of the open borders and sanctuary policies of the Obama and Biden administrations? Obama’s deceitful sanctuary policies were the first step in today’s radical leftist Democrat nullification. Nullification is derived from its root word nullify which means to make legally null and void; invalidate; cancel; overturn. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines nullification as:

1. The act of nullifying or the state of being nullified.

2. The action of a state impeding or attempting to prevent the operation and enforcement within its territory of a law of the U.S.

3. Jury Nullification: the acquitting of a defendant by a jury in disregard of the judge’s instructions and contrary to the jury’s findings of fact.

The theory of sanctuary cities and states was weaponized as the instrument and practice of nullification. And nullification is being supported through seditious lawfare––the strategic weaponization and abuse of the legal system to delegitimize President Trump; impede his presidential efforts to restore law and order in America; and to create overwhelming chaos. Lawfare is the term that combines law and warfare. Lawfare is the abusive exploitation of the legal system against political opponents including appointing radical leftist judges who ignore the law and rule from their own radical leftist political ideology.

The radical leftist Democrat party, with the help of colluding RINOs (Republicans in name only) and the globalist mainstream media, have been bludgeoning law-abiding Americans with Orwellian policies that protect vicious illegal alien criminals at the expense of law-abiding citizens. They have been using lawfare to advance their goals and to neutralize President Trump. WHY? Because nullification, the absolute refusal of states to apply federal law which under the U.S. Constitution they are obligated to do, is designed to challenge the Constitution and ultimately shatter the United States into separate states.

The trajectory and progression from sanctuary cities to sanctuary states to nullification of the supremacy of federal and constitutional law, culminates in the collapse of the union of fifty states. What then? Possibilities include:

• Sanctuary states withdrawing from the union
• Civil war between sanctuary states and constitutional states
• Demise of the United States of America with constitutional states remaining united in a constitutional republic as envisioned by our Founding Fathers, and sanctuary states reconstituted in form and content parallel to the European Union––ideologically, politically, and economically united but not necessarily contiguous geographically.

The radical leftist Democrat party is the ideological, political, and economic enemy within. Its anti-American, anti-Judeo-Christian, pro-Muslim, Marxist platform is wholly antithetical to the precepts and constitutional laws of the United States.

Current events in Minnesota demonstrate the defiance and nullification protocols being encouraged by Democrat Governor Tim Walz and the Democrat mayors of Minneapolis and St. Paul. Telling citizens to defy ICE agents and challenge their federal authority is nullification. These seditious events and challenges are being promoted across the country in Democrat-controlled sanctuary cities and states. They are the movement of the radical leftist Democrat/Socialist party. This is an ideological war being waged by Americans, against Americans, in America!

Sanctuary cities and states are a consummate humanitarian hoax designed to collapse the United States. They are an essential part of the overarching globalist war on nation-states. Globalism is a replacement ideology that seeks to reorder the world into one singular, planetary Unistate, ruled by the globalist elite.

The globalist war on nation-states cannot succeed without collapsing the United States of America. The long-term strategic attack plan moves America incrementally from constitutional republic to socialism to globalism to feudalism. Europe has already fallen, and the radical leftist Democrat/Socialist party in America, funded and fomented by the globalist elite, is using lawfare, sanctuary cities, and sanctuary states as its instruments of nullification to collapse the United States from within. Nullification is globalism’s existential threat to America that must be confronted and defeated.

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Space Is No Longer the Final Frontier––Reality Is is available in paperback, hardback, and ebook formats on barnesandnoble.com, amazon.com, and directly from Ingram in paperback.

Pundicity page: goudsmit.pundicity.com

Website: lindagoudsmit.com