At Last: Lindsey Graham to Introduce Bill to Abolish Sanctuary Cities
“I also made it clear that Minneapolis does not and will not enforce federal immigration laws, and that we will remain focused on keeping our neighbors and streets safe.”
The American experiment was founded upon a system of laws that all must follow — laws intended to restrain power, protect liberty, and ensure that no individual stands above the rules that govern the nation. From its earliest days, the republic has depended not on the will of kings or crowds, but on a shared commitment to constitutional order, equal justice, and accountability under the law. This principle has been the bedrock of American stability.
This system begins to fracture when citizens — and most dangerously, elected officials — convince themselves that disagreement confers exemption, that laws may be obeyed selectively and ignored at will. This is precisely the logic embraced by blue-state governors and mayors who proclaim certain state and local jurisdictions as sanctuary territories.
The insistence by Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey on flouting federal immigration law is directly responsible for the current mayhem gripping the state. Cloaking their actions in professed concern for the welfare and supposed “rights” of their “neighbors,” they have effectively declared Minnesota — and Minneapolis in particular — off-limits to ICE and Border Patrol agents.
In effect, they are attempting to exempt themselves and their constituents from federal law. That is the very definition of a confederacy. And just as the original Democrat-led Confederacy resisted federal authority in order to preserve slavery, today’s Democrats are resisting federal authority to shield illegal aliens from law enforcement. Both efforts represent open defiance of the law—and both are reprehensible.
In a Sunday evening Truth Social post, President Donald Trump wrote that he was “calling on the United States Congress to immediately pass Legislation to END Sanctuary Cities.” He asked for Walz, Frey, and all Democratic mayors and governors “to formally cooperate with the Trump Administration to enforce our Nation’s Laws, rather than resist and stoke the flames of Division, Chaos, and Violence.”
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) is currently working on legislation to do just that.
🚨 BREAKING: Sen. Lindsey Graham is drawing up legislation with the White House to ABOLISH sanctuary cities for illegal aliens once and for all, in federal statute, making it impossible for them to ever exist again
Get it done. WE HAVE TO BAN IT. Permanently. pic.twitter.com/WlrG63de6S
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) January 24, 2026
On Tuesday night, Graham discussed his proposed bill with Fox News’ Sean Hannity. He said:
Tom Homan going to Minnesota is good to turn down the temperature. But you know what is unreasonable? Having sanctuary city policies in 12 states that entice people to come to our country, to avoid enforcing federal law, to increase crime, to incentivize fraud.
He’s going to be reasonable, but what Donald Trump is not going to do is avoid dealing with sanctuary city policy. I talked to him just a few minutes ago. President Trump is working with me and others to introduce a bill to go to the floor of the United States Senate to end sanctuary city policy forever.
…
We’re going to be reasonable in Minnesota, but we are not going to give up on the idea of fixing the source of the problem, which is sanctuary city crazy laws in 12 states.
[The full segment can be viewed here.]
Sen. Lindsey Graham says Tom Homan’s move to Minnesota will lower tensions, but vows President Trump and Senate Republicans will end sanctuary city policies he says fuel crime and fraud nationwide:
“Tom Homan going to Minnesota is good to turn down the temperature. But you know… pic.twitter.com/HH3O1iv3AM
— Sean Hannity 🇺🇸 (@seanhannity) January 28, 2026
As the commenter below states, ending sanctuary policies is about restoring the rule of law in the U.S.
Sanctuary cities are a magnet for chaos—shielding criminal illegals while law-abiding citizens pay the price. Graham’s right: ending these policies isn’t about “temperature,” it’s about restoring the rule of law. The AFLegal brief and Trump’s enforcement strategy prove that ICE’s…
— DOGEai TX (@DOGEai_tx) January 28, 2026
The chaos needs to end. Democrats are on the wrong side of this argument, yet they continue to act like the aggrieved party. Even after what Trump described as “good” conversations with Walz and Frey, both Democrats doubled down on their refusal to enforce federal immigration laws.
Following a phone call with Trump and a meeting with Border Czar Tom Homan on Tuesday, Frey released a statement declaring, in part: “I also made it clear that Minneapolis does not and will not enforce federal immigration laws, and that we will remain focused on keeping our neighbors and streets safe.”
Walz struck a similarly defiant tone. In an interview with The Bulwark’s Tim Miller, he played the tough guy, portraying his call with Trump as a “victory” and suggesting — implausibly — that his strong-arm tactics had forced the president to back down.
Walz also aimed a verbal broadside at Vice President J.D. Vance, who trounced him in their October 2024 debate. He boasted to Miller, “I would beat the sh** out of him now if I could.”
Congress must act now to abolish sanctuary cities. They have no place in a democratic republic.
Watch and listen here: https://t.co/HalzxpZ8WO
— The Bulwark (@BulwarkOnline) January 27, 2026
Elizabeth writes commentary for Legal Insurrection and The Washington Examiner. She is an academy fellow at The Heritage Foundation. Please follow Elizabeth on X or LinkedIn.
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Comments
More failure theatre unless he is also going to abolish the filibuster.
Even if he does abolish the filibuster — which the senate can do but can’t ever undo — he still can’t abolish sanctuary cities, because the constitution forbids that.
You are incorrect Milhouse: there are no “sanctuary cities”. Immigration law is federal law, and there can be no “sanctuary” city or state where the law cannot be enforced by the federal government.
Certainly states have no duty or legal obligation to cooperate or assist but they cannot impede or ignore federal law.
I do agree however that I can’t understate how a federal law could require states to assist in enforcement of federal law.
Indeed there can be no city or state where the law cannot be enforced by the federal government, and no one claims there is. In the entire history of “sanctuary cities” and states not one has ever tried to prevent the federal government from enforcing its laws, at its own expense and using only its own resources.
There has never been even one instance of a sanctuary state or city official charged with such an attempt! In that time two judges who did not hold office in sanctuary cities/states were caught helping people evade ICE, and yet not a single judge or any other official, of any sanctuary city/state, has ever been caught doing that. If it were the policy of such cities/states to do so there would surely have been at least one instance of them trying to implement that policy! The absence of any such attempt proves that such a policy has never existed in any of these jurisdictions.
And that is exactly what sanctuary cities/states are all about, and have been about for the last four decades, ever since the very first such declaration, by San Francisco in 1985.
I’m assuming you mean other than Minneapolis right now
MN is actively impeding the enforcement of federal laws by encouraging efforts to impede such enforcement, by refusing to arrest activists who are clearly breaking the law eg by blocking streets.
Ironclaw, no, I don’t mean other than Minneapolis. Minneapolis is not doing anything at all to impede ICE.
FOAF, you are contradicting yourself. It is literally impossible, by definition, to “actively” do something by “refusing” to do something. Refusal to do something means not doing it. That’s passive by definition. The city has no duty to arrest anyone it doesn’t want to. Standing on its right not to arrest people can’t be unlawful, and can’t be made unlawful.
Hannah Dugan, Milwaukee, WI? Does Milwaukee mayor Cavalier Johnson not claim Milwaukee to be a Sanctuary City? The city may not have voted “officially” to be such but he spouts it often enough. And since no such “status” is actually “official” in a strictly legal sense, because it basically violates the supremacy clause, if it walks like a duck?
The Minnesota National Guard was providing material aid to the people obstructing ICE at the order of the governor.
This fact was widely reported, with praise from your leftist brethren, over the past few days.
Lindsey is just so precious.
I remember this closet queen gushing over the wise Latina and enthusiastically endorsing her ascent to the supreme court.
Election time….he’ll run toward a fence until reelected, then ride away on a RINO pony and disavow any culpability.
springsteen had no song for ashli babbit unarmed patriot murdered by leo
Through the winter’s ice and cold
Down Nicollet Avenue
A city aflame fought fire and ice
‘Neath an occupier’s boots
King Trump’s private army from the DHS
Guns belted to their coats
Came to Minneapolis to enforce the law
Or so their story goes
Against smoke and rubber bullets
By the dawn’s early light
Citizens stood for justice
Their voices ringing through the night
And there were bloody footprints
Where mercy should have stood
And two dead left to die on snow-filled streets
Alex Pretti and Renee Good
Oh our Minneapolis, I hear your voice
Singing through the bloody mist
We’ll take our stand for this land
And the stranger in our midst
Here in our home they killed and roamed
In the winter of ’26
We’ll remember the names of those who died
On the streets of Minneapolis
Trump’s federal thugs beat up on
His face and his chest
Then we heard the gunshots
And Alex Pretti lay in the snow, dead
Their claim was self defense, sir
Just don’t believe your eyes
It’s our blood and bones
And these whistles and phones
Against Miller and Noem’s dirty lies
Oh our Minneapolis, I hear your voice
Crying through the bloody mist
We’ll remember the names of those who died
On the streets of Minneapolis
Now they say they’re here to uphold the law
But they trample on our rights
If your skin is black or brown my friend
You can be questioned or deported on sight
In chants of ICE out now
..theres more
https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/music/articles/bruce-springsteen-releases-protest-song-172158364.html
Now I’m all misty-eyed.
I took a dump
We’ve had Springsteen’s number for years, and the gun community even longer.
Good luck with the filibuster.
Does anyone here believe this actually going to go anywhere?
If Graham and the rest of the Senate were serious, action would have been taken long ago.
Or it would have been introduced by someone with more credibility. This is Kabuki theater, especially when there’s a likely shutdown in a few days.
Sen Graham is not the definition of Kabuki. That honor is held by his fellow statesman Trey Gowdy, a politician more sickening than Alex “Hyu in Sout Colina we don’ back down from a faaaht” Sanders.
I have my own issues with Gowdy but it isn’t accurate to say the man is a politician. He served 8 years in the HoR voluntarily leaving office over 7 years ago.
Graham is at best an unwilling dupe and far more likely a willing participant. He was John McCain’s ‘bestie’ and seems to me a dishonest, fraudulent neocon/globalist/corporatist stooge.
It’s an election year. They gave to look like they are Doing Something.
We’ve gotta protect our phony baloney jobs!
https://youtu.be/uTmfwklFM-M?si=k5pOooehrwJbjqLd
One harumph!
Still no edit key, eh?
yeah we need to move past this as the lefty continues to marshal their forces and begs for mayhem
we have to figure that the 2026 midterms are going to be what they are
and just do whats right to stop the communistnazi takeovers which are taking over small towns nad bleeding into big cities
blmplo has never been stronger and building up each day
the left encourages violence and the gop as you note could have/should have done this long long ago
maga
Yup. It’s already illegal. No need for another bill, only enforcement of existing law.
No, it isn’t illegal, and Congress can’t make it illegal.
Harboring persons suspected of violating federal law is distinctly illegal. And that’s exactly what “sanctuary” jurisdictions do when they pledge to protect persons from the consequences of their violations of federal law.
That is not harboring. Sanctuary jurisdictions, from their beginning 40 years ago, don’t pledge to protect anyone. They pledge that they will not assist, or allow any of their resources to be used to assist, in enforcement of federal law. That is all. And Congress can’t make that illegal.
If it were possible under our constitution, it would have been done in the 1830s, and certainly in the 1850s. It wasn’t possible then, and it isn’t possible now.
Indeed in 1917 it was possible! They were amending the constitution, so they could have put in anything they liked.
They even put in a specific provision that “The congress and the several states shall have concurrent power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation”. It would have been so easy to provide that the states shall enforce this article, and all US laws made pursuant to it.
And yet they didn’t do that, and thus knowingly allowed for the possibility — and high probability — of “sanctuary cities/states” that would refuse to enforce Prohibition, or to assist in its enforcement, as indeed occurred. Because they respected the constitutional principle that states (and their subdivisions, with their permission) are entitled to do so.
Indeed, if there was a real chance of this becoming law, Lindsey would not be introducing it.
As likely to pass as it is likely Lindsey Graham is straight.
Jacob Frey: Minneapolis does not and will not enforce federal immigration laws.
Lindsey Graham: Okay, we’ll pass another law.
Frey: We don’t and won’t enforce federal immigration laws, and there’s no law that says we have to.
Graham: Fine, so we’ll pass such a law.
Constitution: You can’t.
That’s true. But that’s not the sum of what they did. They purposely (as during the BLM riots) refused to deploy crowd control, which would have not only protected ICE from protestors, but would have protected protestors from ICE. This was a decision to disrupt ICE operations by proxy. It’s usual to deploy crowd control during civil unrest. The departure from this norm exposes the refusal to make such deployment as a positive act that crowd control goes beyond mere “non-cooperation.”
That last should have been:
…refusal to make such deployment was a positive act that goes beyond mere “non-cooperation.”
By definition, refusal to do something cannot be a positive act! Calling a refusal a positive act is like calling a triangle a circle.
They had no federal constitutional duty to deploy crowd control, so they sat on their right to fiddle while Rome burned. Exactly like the northern states that refused to protect slave catchers from lynch mobs.
Or like the governor of PA and mayor of Philadelphia who refused to protect Congress from rioters, which is why the constitution’s framers decided that the new congress needed to be in its own district where it would be in charge of the militia and could call it out to protect itself. That’s why DC exists. And yet they didn’t put in a provision compelling the states to protect the congress, or to enforce federal law.
True, though purposefully allowing public disorder and anarchy comes at the risk of insurrection act and giving the Executive the opportunity to determine the beginning and the end of the use of the power.
As an alternative I’d suggest a daily phone call from ICE to each local LEO Agency involved in this non cooperative resistance nonsense.
‘hey local Police Chief/Sheriff good morning this is ICE agent Smith. Y’all got any illegal aliens in lockup today? No huh, well we’ll be by about 9AM to see for ourselves with today’s funding allocation check and a bus. I’d really have to put it into the shredder again so that today’s disbursement doesn’t come until the end of the FY in September so let us inside today not standing outside like yesterday’.
The local PD will eventually get their $ but not till the end of the fiscal year which is probably within the power for the executive to do; temporarily delay but not cancel funding.
Milhouse,
Ok let’s say it is 100% accurate that under our Constitutional System that an entity may not assert an otherwise constitutional prerogative in order to ‘compel’ a desired outcome from another entity.
My proposal doesn’t compel the State /Local govt to undertake any action. Nor does it refuse to disburse funds. It merely creates the incentive of prompt v delayed disbursement. Get it today with basic cooperation to simply turn over to ICE the illegal aliens that are already in custody… Not sign up for 287-G to directly enforce Federal immigration laws, not ‘partner’ with ICE …just hand over folks already in custody.
Now lets apply your same standard to State/Local govt. In Minneapolis the local and State PD are allowing a mob to stalk, constantly harass and impede Federal LEO operations. They publicly proclaim they do this b/c want ‘ICE out of MN’. Are they not exercising their otherwise constitutional discretion in a manner designed to achieve a particular action by the Federal Gov’t? Seems pretty clear that’s exactly what they are.doing.
There is no prohibition on a state “compelling” the US government, if it can find a way to do so.
Milhouse
There’s a distinction between compel which requires X by force and creating an incentive for X.
In point of fact there is no constitutional prohibition on the Feds either …though a few attorneys in robes decided there may be in limited circumstances of trust fund dollars HWY Fund and Medicare Funds. Personally I don’t think reliance on those two applies to discretionary spending and grants but we won’t know for sure what SCOTUS will rule until a case with those specific facts comes before them. Nor will we know if a future SCOTUS will/will not overturn it as.we saw with abortion being returned to the States.
Dear Sen Graham:
You are nothing more than Trey Gowdy with a syrupy accent.
Switch parties and let us see how conservative you are by thwarting their every move.
This is flatly unconstitutional. Graham and every congressman who would vote for such a bill would be violating their oaths.
Indeed it is, and those are precisely the laws that Graham is now proposing to violate. Laws that protect the states’ liberty to refuse to do the federal government’s bidding, to refuse to allow the federal government to commandeer their resources for its own purposes. If a state disagrees with a federal policy, whether it’s catching fugitive slaves, prohibiting alcohol, changing its speed limit, conducting background checks on prospective gun purchasers, establishing insurance exchanges, or enforcing immigration laws, the constitution protects its absolute right to refuse. It can’t stop the federal government from enforcing its own laws, but it need not lift a finger to assist in a policy that it thinks is wrong. That is a right that the states reserved when they joined the union, and that has been a core principle of our federation ever since. If Congress wants states to cooperate it may try to persuade them, and give them incentives, but it is absolutely forbidden to do anything that would compel them.
Does the US Constitution expressly consent, empower, enable, or permit states to legislate sanctuary cities, counties, or states?
The tenth amendment protects precisely that right. So the courts have held since the very beginning of the republic.
My reading of the Constitution shows that the (original) States surrendered any jurisdiction over the issues of border control and immigration when they ratified the Constitution. Others agreed that the Constitution is the supreme law of the land (as the Constitution itself declares) when they voluntarily joined the Union while the Constitution was in effect.
Although I’d agree that States have a right to secede (sorry, SCOTUS, but denying they have a right to secede condemns the United States as an illegitimate entity, born as it was from an “illegal” secession from Great Britain), they do not have a right to defy the law so long as they remain Union members. There are ways and means by which laws and policies can be changed legally. Opposition parties can’t be allowed to overturn laws by stamping their feet. They must appeal to the Congress, the voters, and/or to the courts. If they find no satisfaction via those avenues, we should be pleased to see them leave the Union until such time they again make solemn promises and agree to abide by the law. Law they have not only previously acknowledged, but law they have also fairly recently argued and demonstrated is the federal government’s to dispense.
There are no small insurrections, only insurrections. Declarations of “sanctuary” were quaint and fuzzy, until they became the nexus of outright defiance. The president’s opponents stopped merely “refusing to cooperate” when a decision was made to not provide local resources for crowd control (for the protection of both ICE and the protestors) to create chaos for political purposes. A decision to follow a course of inaction is to decide on a course of action when the inaction is calculated to allow one to reach one’s goals and is not merely a failure to act.
There’s nothing in the constitution that says that, and for the first 100 years of the republic no one thought it meant that. But that’s water under the bridge. About 150 years ago the Supreme Court decided that those issues were inherent in the very concept of sovereignty, and therefore that Congress had plenary power over those issues and it didn’t need to be enumerated in Article 1 § 8. Technically this is a problem for us originalists, but we can worry about that some other time. For now the law of the land is indeed that Congress has plenary power over immigration, and states have no power to make any laws in that area.
That doesn’t change the fact that no law Congress makes, whether on immigration or anything else, can compel the states to enforce it, or to give the federal government any assistance in enforcing it. The states maintain the right they have always had to frustrate federal policy by refusing to cooperate with it. Whether it’s fugitive slaves, prohibition, gun control, 0bamacare, or immigration. The states retain the power to tell the USA “It’s your policy, you enforce it, but we’re not helping”.
What I get from this comment by Milhouse is 1) the supremacy clause in Article 6 is a scrap of paper and 2) President Eisenhower acted unconstitutionally in Little Rock 1957. Though I’m sure he’ll have an answer based in sophistic legalese.
If that’s what you get then all you’re doing is displaying profound ignorance of the constitution.
No one disputes the supremacy clause. All federal laws are the supreme law of the land. But Congress can’t make any law it likes. It’s constrained by the constitution, and can only make those laws the constitution allows it to. And the constitution forbids it from making any law that would compel the states to do its bidding. Any law it would try to make to do that would automatically be invalid.
The states have to obey the constitution too, and it’s the president’s job to see that the laws are faithfully executed, including by the states. But only valid laws.
The supremacy clause is why the states cannot interfere with ICE. ICE is free to operate anywhere in the USA that it likes, without any hindrance by anyone. If a state policeman tries to arrest an ICE agent for something he has done in the course of his duties, that policeman is a criminal and the agent can arrest him. That’s because of the supremacy clause that you ignorantly call a scrap of paper.
Eisenhower acted to enforce a court order, which was binding on the state government. The court found that the state was violating the constitution, and ordered it to stop. Eisenhower made it stop. He could not make the state do anything it didn’t want to do; but he could make it stop doing things it had no right to do.
“This is flatly unconstitutional. Graham and every congressman who would vote for such a bill would be violating their oaths.”
Ha ha! Like they’d lose a second of sleep!
No, they wouldn’t. But it would still be the case.
On the contrary, they are a fundamental principle of our federal republic.
A neocon is right twice a career in government.
So, maybe we should change that?
E.g., an amendment to read
A Person charged with illegal entry into the United States who shall flee from Justice, and be found in any other State, shall on Demand of the executive Authority of the United States be delivered up to be removed.
Eh?
Passing a constitutional amendment without broad and bipartisan support is just impossible. You need two thirds of each house of congress, which itself can’t be done without enough Democrats crossing the floor. And then you need majorities in both houses of 38 state legislatures (one house in Nebraska’s case). To get all that a measure must be popular in both parties.
what constitution are you people blabbing about?
it was irrelevant long ago when the EO was first allowed
then by allowing government to take over business and create positions with un-elected people deciding laws and regs and money needs etc
they made up laws for one set of people but not for others
now they have turned that onto us
now we are living in the era of
we’re the giverment and we are here to help
If this alleged bill to ban sanctuary jurisdictions doesn’t include long prison sentences for elected or appointed officials (including judges) who attempt to circumvent federal jurisdiction, then it serves no purpose.
And I find it hard to believe there will be any penalties at all.
So if sanctuary cities are legal ( and they are) why were jim crow cities illegal?
both are discriminatory as the sanc cities give preferences for a group of people over others ( you will protected by the local when the feds come for you) you will be given room and board etc etc
jim crow laws told a group of people they wouldnt be protected and that the dominate group would be protected
the feds ( eisenhower) sent in troops to protect innocent people from mobs
trump looks to protect innocent people from mobs but the courts stop him
the gov and mayor stop him
You have no idea what the term “Jim Crow” means.
Jim Crow laws were laws compelling racial segregation. Just as the law now says businesses are not allowed to discriminate among customers by race, these laws said they had to. The Supreme Court originally upheld such laws, but later changed its mind about them.
You will notice that the constitution didn’t change one word in the meantime.
Indeed. The fourteenth amendment, which is currently understood to forbid such laws, was already in place, and meant exactly the same thing that it means now. The current view is that the previous court’s interpretation was simply wrong.
Um…
Just what does abolishing a city mean?
If one abolished Seattle or Portland, would it be there the next day?
Or would the Federal money dry up?
What are we doing here, making a statement?
He’s not proposing abolishing the cities. He’s proposing a federal law requiring cities and states to cooperate with federal law enforcement. The problem with that is that the tenth amendment forbids Congress from making such a law.
Aiding and abetting criminals is a crime, and refusal to use available law enforcement resources to apprehend or assist in apprehension is a form of aiding and abetting. Therefore, States that declare that they are exempt from enforcement of Federal immigration laws are in rebellion, and threaten the integrity and sovereignty of the United States. Allowing this to stand would invite further refusals to honor the requirements of the Constitution, and thereby put our citizens at further risk and promote the goals of our enemies. Thus officials who enact and maintain “sanctuary” are in fact committing treason, and should be dealt with as such, or we might as well kiss this Great Experiment goodbye.