In Baltimore, Illegal Immigrants Welcomed with Open Arms

The mayor of Baltimore, Stephanie Rawlings-Blake (D), deliberately wants the city compete to become the nation’s largest sanctuary city.

Baltimore’s unemployment rate is at 10 percent. For blacks in Baltimore, the unemployment rate is over 20 percent. People are fleeing Maryland — and its major cities like Baltimore — to states like Virginia and North Carolina that have better conditions for economic growth. But none of that seems to matter to Rawlings-Blake, who thinks opening up Baltimore to illegal immigrants (her goal is to attract at least 10,000 immigrants to Baltimore) will solve — and will not exacerbate  — the city’s economic woes and counteract population decline.

According to The Washington Post, Rawlings-Blake (D) signed an order in March prohibiting police and social agencies from asking anyone about their immigration status and asked federal immigration authorities to tell anyone they arrest that they are not agents of the city. And this is a part of a broader strategy to attract at least 10,000 immigrants to the city, regardless of their legal status. 

As the Post notes, The Pew Hispanic Center estimates that Maryland had the nation’s 10th-largest population of illegal immigrants. The Census does not identify illegal immigrants, so it is not known how many of Maryland’s immigrant population is illegal. And Baltimore wants the lion’s share of the immigrant population — legal and illegal. 

Del. Patrick L. McDonough (R-Baltimore County) said he is working with the conservative watchdog group, Judicial Watch, to determine whether the Baltimore mayor is aiding and abetting people in breaking the law. McDonough also said the mayor’s order creates a sanctuary city for illegal immigrants who will compete with current residents for jobs.

“For the mayor to want to increase the population of Baltimore City in principle is an admirable thing,” McDonough told the paper. “But by going after people who don’t have a lawful presence, and all of the accompanying cultural and criminal issues associated with that policy, you are counterproductive. You’re going to discourage people who live in the city from continuing to be there.”

The order that the mayor signed says it is incumbent upon the city to “to ensure that the newest members of our community are extended the same rights and protections the rest of us seek to preserve and enjoy,” but that language ignores that illegal immigrants would be given special privileges legal immigrants who came to Baltimore legally were not. 

According to the order, “no City funds, resources, or personnel shall be used to investigate, question, apprehend, or arrest an individual solely for an actual or suspected civil violation of federal immigration law” and “no City Department, agency, officer or employee shall condition the provision of City services or benefits on the immigration status of the individual seeking those services or benefits unless such conditions are lawfully imposed by federal or state law.” 

And the order more specifically says all of Baltimore’s Public Safety Agencies and their officials and employees “shall not inquire about a person’s immigration status or contact Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for the purpose of initiating civil enforcement of immigration proceedings, unless required by federal or state law,” and it calls “upon ICE agents performing official business in the City to identify themselves as federal immigration officers and to make clear that they are not officers, agents, or employees of the City.”

A spokesman for the mayor said these policies were deliberately enacted so immigrants already in Baltimore could talk up Baltimore to other — legal or illegal — immigrants. 

“What we want to do is attract immigrants who call home and say: ‘Maybe you should think about coming to Baltimore. I’m having a great time here,’ ” Ian Brennan, a spokesman for the mayor, told the Post.

The Post then glowingly quoted an illegal immigrant who said she feels comfort in Baltimore because she feels “better knowing the mayor has assured us that the police are not going to be going after the immigrants.”

What Baltimore is doing is essentially putting out a “Wanted: Illegal Immigrants” ad that will inevitably attract, over time, more immigrants than the city will be able to handle, especially if word gets out that all illegals will be welcomed with open arms. The city will not have enough money to fund all of the services that will be demanded. And sooner or later, remaining taxpayers in Baltimore will gradually move out, putting further strains on Baltimore’s tax base. 

This is liberal lunacy, and policies such as these enacted by leaders in “blue” cities only end up contributing to their financial collapse.