About Time! Jim Jordan is Moving Forward On Shutting Down Bothersome Sanctuary City Policies

I’ve talked about sanctuary city policies so many times, I’m practically out of breath criticizing them.

Some people believe they are put in place for protection purposes. And when they were initially introduced, that was the point. But lately, they’ve stopped law enforcement officials, as well as ICE agents in some situations, from detaining illegal immigrant criminals.

And clearly, Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), has seen enough.

Earlier this past week, he had a meeting with now-former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem to discuss the legislation he had in mind to fight back against sanctuary cities, based on this release.

Of course, the Committee Democrats were quick to go after Noem, accusing her of what took place with the deaths of two Minneapolis anti-ICE protestors and what they call “systematic civil liberties abuses”.

Really? You’ve got city governments that are leaning heavily on sanctuary city policies left and right to protect illegal immigrants that are doing damage to their community, but ICE agents are abusers of “civil liberties”? Sure.

But Noem was ready. There were families seated behind her, holding up photographs of their dead loved ones, killed by illegal aliens. What’s more, she read through a list of 20 victims in her opening statement, recognizing each of the families as she did so.

The proceedings then had Jordan ask Noem to discuss numbers regarding ICE detailers. Approximately over 201,000 had been issued in 2025 alone, with about 17,864 being declined. Jordan then asked what happened to these cases, and if these illegal immigrants were released back onto the streets. To which Noem responded, “Yes.”

Noem then went into defense discussing the effectiveness of the DHS. She noted that over 700,000 individuals had been detained and deported, and over 2.2 million people have been self-deported. What’s more, 1,500 known or suspected terrorists have been apprehended, before doing further harm to others.

The numbers don’t lie. It’s clear that sanctuary city policies are protecting a number of these types, who Democratic leaders will say have the “right” to be defended. Do I have to remind them that they are in this country illegally, compared to the citizens that they’ve been elected to take care of?

In a previous interview with Cleveland.com, Jordan made it clear what the real problem with sanctuary jurisdictions is. In a nutshell, the cities, including 11 states and the District of Columbia, “just give law enforcement the finger.” And that’s true – whenever ICE usually sends detainer notices requesting local centers to hold individuals before release, most of the time they don’t. That’s because of such rules.

That’s why he’s pushing for the Sanctuary Shutdown Act of 2026 to proceed. “Help is on the way, because we’re going to mark up legislation that will deal with this.”

Now, I know Noem has left her position and a new DHS Secretary, Sen. Markwayne Mullin, is stepping in. But this shouldn’t stand in the way of the progress that Jordan wants to make on shutting down sanctuary cities.

Democrats can argue until they’re blue in the face, but the numbers speak for themselves. And we’ve already seen what the agitation with law enforcement officials and ICE agents creates – chaos. With that, help is needed, and this Sanctuary Shutdown Act of 2026 could be the ticket to getting the job done.

Of course, there’s also the idea of potentially penalizing cities and states that continue to uphold sanctuary rules with financial fines of some kind. That might take a little more effort – especially from President Donald Trump – but it sounds very doable.

The bottom line is that the DHS has made tremendous progress on capturing illegal immigrants thus far, thanks to our brave law enforcement and the efforts of thousands of ICE agents. But our job isn’t through yet. And once these sanctuary policies are pushed aside, we’ll be able to get the job done and bring our country back to prosperity.

It’s about time we did so. Cheering you on, Jordan!