Samantha Bee explains to liberals why Republicans hate 'sanctuary cities' so much
One of President Trump's overshadowed executive orders vows to withhold federal funding from "sanctuary cities," or municipalities and counties that decline as policy to arrest and hand over undocumented immigrants simply for being in the U.S. illegally. "If that sounds reasonable and compassionate to you, congratulations," Samantha Bee said on Wednesday's Full Frontal: "You haven't been watching Fox News for the past five years."
Bee played a highlight reel of Bill O'Reilly and other Fox personalities and guests warning about the horrors of sanctuary cities, over the ominous strains of Mozart's Requiem. "For the attentive Fox News viewer, sanctuary cities are dystopian hell pits of lawlessness, where hoards of non-English-speaking illegal immigrants roam the streets at night, eating stolen tacos and murdering as many people as they want with no consequences whatsoever, because crime-loving liberals swoop in to save them from punishment," Bee explained. But in reality, sanctuary counties in the U.S. actually have slightly lower crime rates — and that includes New York County, home to President Trump and Fox News.
"Sanctuary cities aren't just a hippy, kumbaya global-music CD of an idea," either, Bee said. "Police say having hundreds of thousands of immigrants too scared to say something when the see something kind of makes their job harder." And stripping sanctuary cities and states of federal grants is not only legally questionable, she noted, but nonsensical, since big cities generate 85 percent of U.S. GDP and the lion's share of federal tax revenue. "Threatening to withhold money from sanctuary cities makes as much sense as Macaulay Culkin's parents threatening to dock his allowance."
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Bee had a reality check for liberals, too: "Look, we need comprehensive immigration reform. Some of this country's 13,000 gun deaths a year are caused by undocumented immigrants, and that is a real problem. But it won't be solved by deporting someone's mom for littering." Watch below — and be warned, there is NSFW language. Peter Weber
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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.
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