Sanctuary cities could shield anti-Israel activists facing deportation under the Trump administration, according to Simon Hankinson, a senior research fellow at the Border Security and Immigration Center at the Heritage Foundation.

The U.S. House Judiciary Committee recently opened investigations into sanctuary-city policies in San Francisco and San Diego, seeking records from local law-enforcement agencies about their cooperation with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The U.S. House Judiciary Committee recently opened investigations into sanctuary-city policies in San Francisco and San Diego, seeking records from local law-enforcement agencies about their cooperation with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), joined by Reps. Tom McClintock (R-Calif.) and Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), accused the jurisdictions of limiting cooperation with federal immigration authorities and failing to honor ICE detainer requests.

In San Francisco, lawmakers cited policies that restrict cooperation with ICE and noted that the sheriff’s office has honored few detainer requests. In San Diego, the committee pointed to police policies barring officers from asking about immigration status or participating in immigration enforcement, as well as a recently enacted ordinance requiring federal immigration agents to obtain a judicial warrant before entering nonpublic city property.

Hankinson told JNS that such policies could also “assist people who are deeply hostile to the United States, to capitalism and to some of our allies.”

He pointed to Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University graduate and prominent anti-Israel activist who is facing deportation proceedings, as an example of the type of individual whom sanctuary-city policies could protect from federal immigration enforcement. He also cited other anti-Israel activists who, he said, were “out on campuses screaming and yelling about Gaza.”

Khalil is facing deportation on allegations that he omitted prior work with the U.N. Relief and Works Agency and the British Embassy in Syria when applying for U.S. permanent residency.

According to Hankinson, when a noncitizen is arrested on criminal charges, ICE may file a detainer requesting that local authorities hold the person briefly after release so federal agents can assume custody and begin immigration proceedings.

“Because sanctuary cities don’t believe in federal immigration enforcement, they won’t honor those detainers,” he told JNS.

Policies vary by jurisdiction. Some sanctuary cities honor detainer requests only for people accused or convicted of serious violent crimes, while others generally decline to cooperate with ICE. Hankinson, however, said he does not believe sanctuary jurisdictions would intentionally protect individuals involved in terrorism.

“If someone is an actual terrorist and they’ve committed an act of terrorism, it’s an offense under the law, then even a sanctuary city would be pretty stupid to harbor them and not let justice do its thing,” he said.

But in cases involving immigration proceedings that do not stem from terrorism-related criminal charges, sanctuary cities “almost certainly wouldn’t honor” such a detainer because “they could consider that to be immigration enforcement that they’re not in favor of,” Hankinson said.

“Sanctuary cities would harbor people who had said very contentious, anti-American things,” he told JNS. “They would consider them as protected under their sanctuary laws.”

Hankinson said the federal government could seek greater compliance through funding restrictions and other measures. He pointed to reports that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has considered reducing certain federal services in jurisdictions that refuse to cooperate with immigration enforcement.

“That can be done somewhat by the administration, but it could also be enshrined in statute,” he said. “If a city or state doesn’t cooperate, then certain kinds of funding could be made unavailable to them.”