Sanctuary policies are keeping prisoners in local jails away from ICE

A Stateline analysis of ICE data through March 10 found states with strict non-cooperation policies — Oregon, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York and Washington — had the lowest rates of immigration arrests inside jails, while states barring sanctuary policies, like Wyoming, West Virginia, Mississippi and Alabama, had the highest. New Mexico, despite some limiting policies, also ranked among the highest, and its ethics commission has sued the state corrections department over alleged violations of its own cooperation law.

Border czar Tom Homan had promised to 'flood the zone' with street enforcement in sanctuary cities while treating cooperative states like Florida differently. The data shows otherwise: Florida's street-arrest rate ranked 40th, similar to non-cooperating Washington state, and seven of the ten states with the highest street-arrest rates were actually cooperative ones — topped by West Virginia, where a single January 'surge team' operation arrested hundreds out of a noncitizen population of just 17,100.

Minnesota, Maine and Washington, D.C. also posted high street-arrest rates, many involving people with no criminal record; 81% of D.C.'s street arrests fit that description. Minneapolis-St. Paul's winter operation ended in two killings by federal agents and hundreds of millions in business losses, while researchers note ICE has not released detailed state-by-state arrest data since March despite a record 51,000 arrests in July.

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