According to a look at the data by Issues & Insights, more than three million Americans have packed up and moved away from deep blue “sanctuary” states.
The site points out that this fact comes just as several deep blue state governors appeared in Washington to testify about their un-American sanctuary policies before a House committee.
“The governors of these states must explain why they are prioritizing the protection of criminal illegal aliens over the safety of U.S. citizens, and they must be held accountable,” House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Chairman James Comer said ahead of the hearings.
But as Issues & Insights notes, millions of citizens held their home states accountable by voting with their feet and leaving them for some better, more successful red state.
Eleven states and the District of Columbia are considered “sanctuary states” by the Center for Immigration Studies and are ranked as the friendliest to illegal immigrants by the Immigrant Legal Resource Center.
Of those, 10 have seen a net loss of population due to internal migration from 2020 to 2024, according to Census Bureau data.
How many have fled these states? Try 3.1 million.
New York alone saw 966,209 leave. Illinois lost 418,056, and Minnesota lost 47,930. California is the all-time leader – it suffered a net loss of more than 1.2 million over those years.
In fact, the top five population losers are all sanctuary states.
Just two sanctuary states – Vermont and Colorado – eked out population gains … a mere 37,000 in total.
In contrast, of the 12 states ranked by the Immigrant Legal Resource Center as having the least friendly to illegal immigrants, 10 had huge net gains in population from 2020 to 2024 – totaling 2.9 million.
Meanwhile, of the states that uphold immigration laws and do NOT allow cities and counties to adopt “sanctuary” policies, only two (Kansas and Louisiana) of 12 have lost population. Florida, Texas, South Carolina, Arizona, Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, Arkansas, Indiana, and West Virginia have all grown, the first two by hundreds of thousands!
Many Americans may want to pretend they love the idea of cities being “sanctuaries” for dangerous, lawbreaking illegals. But most sure as hell don’t want to live in one.
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