New York and other American "sanctuary cities" are skating on thin ice when they vow to ignore federal laws about identifying and turning in illegal immigrants, a former Immigration and Naturalization Service special agent told Newsmax TV.
"What kind of sanctuary do you have where what you're doing is shielding aliens . . . who are un-inspected or who had green cards and lost them because they committed a series of felonies – perhaps violent felonies, rape, murder?" Michael Cutler told host Bill Tucker on Wednesday's "America Talks Live."
"We are washed in heroin and in cocaine. That garbage is not made here. It's all smuggled into the country, and they move an entire drug organization into the communities to peddle the drug to make certain the money gets back to the cartel."
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Sanctuary cities, which include Los Angeles, San Francisco, Baltimore, Newark and Providence, protect undocumented immigrants from being solely prosecuted for violating federal immigration laws by living illegally in the United States.
But Cutler, a national security expert who testified before the 9/11 Commission and more than a dozen Congressional hearings on immigration, said federal law always supersedes the policies of local municipalities, and to ignore it poses a huge danger.
He said the 9/11 Commission found "multiple failures that enabled the terrorists to not only enter the United States, but embed themselves hidden in plain sight," and he criticized New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio's vow to protect its undocumented immigrants.
"New York City [is] the city who was hammered the worst on 9/11, the city that constantly runs back to Congress and says 'give me money, give me money, we're the target, we're Ground Zero,'" Cutler said. "All it took were 19 terrorists. So when you have a mayor who says we're going to provide sanctuary . . ."
Cutler said he is hopeful the nomination of Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., as President-elect Donald Trump's attorney general will strengthen the nation's immigration laws and help put an end to sanctuary cities, which total about 200 across the country.
"He's a prosecutorial gun slinger, and he understands that our sovereign borders are responsible or should be responsible for our safety and for the jobs of Americans," Cutler said.
"Look this is nuts, and by the way, don't they call jails correctional facilities, optimistically hoping that they end recidivism, and we know it doesn't happen. You know the best cure for recidivism? Deport criminal aliens who have no lawful right to be here.
"If they stay out of our country, they stay off of our streets, and they don't victimize more victims. By the way, the most likely victims are the members of the ethnic immigrant communities not only from America but from all over the world . . . Interior enforcement is the key."
Cutler is a senior fellow at Californians for Population Stabilization and focuses on border security and immigration issues and their impact on national security, community safety and the economy.