Nearly Every Sanctuary City Lie Packed Into One Fox Segment

Written by Dina Radtke

Published

While discussing President Donald Trump's executive order to cut funding to sanctuary cities, which was recently blocked by a federal judge, the hosts of Fox News' Outnumbered managed to squeeze multiple lies into one segment.

Outnumbered hosts Meghan McCain and Harris Faulkner both claimed that in sanctuary cities, undocumented immigrants can commit crimes with impunity. McCain said, “Anyone can come in and do anything, any illegal behavior, and it's accepted,” and Faulkner claimed that undocumented immigrants get “special treatment” when they commit crimes. In reality, undocumented immigrants who commit crimes are punished equally under the law as other criminals. In sanctuary jurisdictions, law enforcement simply often decline to honor Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detainer requests, which are voluntary, for local jails to hold a person for 48 hours past his or her sentence. Compliance with these detainer requests has led to Fourth Amendment concerns and legal proceedings that cost cities hundreds of thousands of dollars. And in cases where people may pose a threat to public safety, many sanctuary cities do honor detainer requests.

Faulkner also pushed the debunked myth that “sanctuary cities are operating outside the law as we know it,” and McCain claimed that sanctuary policy is an “extreme idea” when in fact a growing number of cities are adopting the approach. Additionally, Fox hosts Eric Bolling and Trish Regan encouraged Trump's unconstitutional executive order, falsely claiming that the federal government has the right to cut “funding for law enforcement, for municipalities” and “all kinds of federal funding” for failing to comply with ICE detainer requests. In fact, constitutional scholars have pointed out that this order conflicts with a number of laws.

Regan went on to lambaste sanctuary cities for putting public safety at risk, saying, “I don't know if I want to go to San Francisco ... because I'm concerned about safety in a way that maybe I wouldn't be if New York City made sure it was cooperating with the feds.” Studies show that sanctuary cities are as safe or safer than other cities, and many law enforcement officials have said that maintaining trust with immigrant communities is necessary in order to fight crime. Also, New York City follows a sanctuary city policy that was implemented under both Democratic and Republican mayors.

From the April 26 edition of Fox News' Outnumbered:

MEGHAN MCCAIN (CO-HOST): I do think we should talk about politics in this. If you're a hard-line voter who voted for President Trump on his immigration stance, which, by the way, I believe that was probably 50 percent of people who ended up voting for him, and you're like, I elected this guy into office, this is what I want, and, by the way, even more moderates on immigration have a very difficult time with sanctuary cities. This is a very extreme idea. It's a very extreme area of the country. I have a really good friend lives in Malibu, sent me a picture of the Malibu sign saying “proud sanctuary city.” She's furious. And I said, “Yeah. And you're paying taxes there right now, just FYI.” And anyone can come in and do anything, any illegal behavior, and it's accepted in the area you live in and pay taxes. So it's extreme even by, I think, people who have a more moderate stance on immigration. And the problem is if you get up in the morning, voted for a harder immigration stance with President Trump, now it's being stopped, as both of you just said, by political judges in the 9th Circuit who are apparently going to take that in their own hands despite what the American public voted for.

HARRIS FAULKNER (CO-HOST): You know what’s interesting, too, Meghan. And I was writing this down as you are talking about sanctuary cities and jurisdictions. They actually technically operate outside the law as we know it now. So let's put all the funding aside. Let's just talk about the American citizenry and what the expectation of protection is for the rest of us when illegals live among us with special treatment. I mean, I think that's a fair place to start. And then you have an entire state in California, which would like to become a jurisdiction.

[...]

ERIC BOLLING: My thoughts are, then fine, and you shouldn't. If the state of California wants to declare themselves sanctuary, go for it. Knock yourself out. But all the Trump administration is saying is, and I would agree with, then you run the risk of federal funding on things, not just reimbursement for holding illegals in your jails, but reimbursement on things -- you want to play autonomy --

FAULKNER: Slippery slope.

BOLLING: -- go ahead, but there is a lot of funding for law enforcement, for municipalities that are federally funded and sometimes matched by states -- that if you pull that back, they would have a hard time. California would definitely be having financial problems. Be careful what you wish for.

[...]

TRISH REGAN: You're touching on something that's really important here because you think about federal funding, even for homeland security in a state like California, in cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles. If they lose that funding and, frankly, they are at risk at losing all kinds of federal funding, I don't know as I want to go to San Francisco -- I may not  want to go to San Francisco as it is -- but I don't know as I want to go there because I'm concerned about safety in a way that maybe I wouldn't be if New York City made sure it’s cooperating with the feds.

SANDRA SMITH (CO-HOST): But Meghan, did the White House go too far when we just heard Sean Spicer say, “The blood of dead Americans on their hands,” referencing San Francisco?

MCCAIN: No. I think you have got to see Kate Steinle's family and people like that. And I think if you are someone living in Malibu, living in a sanctuary city, it feels like people can break laws of any kind, and there will be no ramifications. And I do think it's a very slippery slope, and we don't know where it ends.