President Trump’s plan to bus immigration/asylum applicants to major U.S. cities as political retribution, which he is still considering, is premised on dubious assumptions. As Philip Bump points out in the Washington Post, our major metropolitan areas are accustomed to new immigrants of both the legal and illegal variety, and they don’t generally see them as threatening.
Obviously the sudden injection of tens of thousands of people in nearly any city might tax city resources, though it’s not clear what the scale under consideration is in the White House’s aborted plan. But the entire point of sanctuary cities is to make immigrants feel as though they’re an important part of the community. The idea that San Francisco or Los Angeles or New York City would be baffled or outraged at the arrival of new immigrants sort of misses the fact that those cities have been welcoming new immigrants for decades — to the extent that they go out of their way to pass laws offering some protection.
Naturally, when people from foreign countries arrive here, they gravitate to communities that have preexisting populations of people who speak their language, practice their religion, and can offer support in housing and employment. The people who are granted asylum will mostly wind up in sanctuary cities even without being given a free bus ride there by the federal government.
It’s true that Trump could deliberately overwhelm the resources of a city by unloading bus after bus of new arrivals. But that would then be the primary problem, rather than any natural spike in crime. Most of these people are arriving with their children in tow. They’re not coming here to join criminal gangs or commit rapes and assaults. They’re coming here to escape gangs and crime.
It’s really only because the president and his inner circle seem to believe their own racist rhetoric about “caravans” that they think that Democratic politicians will face a giant backlash from their own constituents in response to a crime wave. If there is a backlash, it’s more likely to be related to budget fights that are caused by the federal government creating an expensive problem.
To the extent that any increase in crime actually results, the federal government would be liable for that, since it would be the result of their deliberate plan. If they try to get someone stabbed, raped or killed, and they actually succeed, then they’re clearly to blame for that.
