Sanctuary Cities 2016: Full List Of Places Resisting Donald Trump’s Immigration Pledge

While President-elect Donald Trump has been preparing to take office next month, a growing number of “sanctuary cities” have vowed to limit the scope of their assistance with his immigration policies. Trump said he would crack down on and deport millions of undocumented immigrants. He also said he would take a tough stance on so-called sanctuary cities, which offer protection of sorts for undocumented immigrants. Trump has pledged to cancel funding to such places within his first 100 days of office.

Yet not only have existing sanctuary cities reaffirmed their collective stance, but several other cities have formally declared they will provide a barrier to Trump’s plans in the weeks since his election victory over Hillary Clinton. One of those was Santa Ana in Orange County, California, where City Council members voted last week to declare it a sanctuary.

“The day after Donald Trump got elected, our kids were falling apart emotionally,” Sal Tinajero, a City Council member and teacher at Fullerton Union High School, said Wednesday. “They thought their parents would be deported.”

“The reason you’re seeing this push now is that us leaders ... want to tell them they are going to be protected. If they are going to come for them, they have to come through us first,” Tinajero added.

Yet, while Trump has taken an aggressive stance over sanctuary cities, their significance is largely symbolic and their title somewhat misleading. No local jurisdiction can offer blanket protection to undocumented immigrants and local law enforcement must still cooperate with federal authorities over criminal activity other than that directly related to immigration.

There has been no single interpretation of the term, but sanctuary cities generally limit the scope with which city employees assist the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), such as hunting out undocumented immigrants or detaining them for minor crimes. As part of Santa Ana’s efforts, it has planned to reduce the number of beds available to house immigration detainees in its jail.

Trump has vowed to deport between two to three million immigrants he claims have committed crimes in the United States, a number many experts dispute.

Yet Santa Ana is among four cities to have declared sanctuary city status since the election, joining 37 others who have reaffirmed their commitment to limit the enforcement of federal policies. Here’s a list, compiled by Politico, of all those to have voiced support for undocumented immigrants since Trump became president-elect.

Appleton, Wisconsin
Ashland, Oregon
Aurora, Chicago
Aurora, Colorado
Austin, Texas
Berkeley, California
Boston
Burlington, Vermont
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Chicago
Denver
Detroit
Evanston, Illinois
Hartford, Connecticut
Jersey City, New Jersey
Los Angeles
Madison, Wisconsin
Minneapolis
Montpelier, Vermont
Nashville
New Haven, Connecticut
New York
Newark, New Jersey
Newton, Massachusetts
Oakland
Philadelphia
Phoenix, Arizona
Portland, Oregon
Providence, Rhode Island
Richmond, California
San Francisco
Santa Ana, California
Santa Fe, New Mexico
Seattle
Somerville, Massachusetts
St. Paul, Minnesota
Syracuse, New York
Takoma Park, Maryland
Tucson, Arizona
Washington
Winooski, Vermont