Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Kaine was called by CNN’s Chris Cuomo on Thursday for suggesting that sanctuary cities do not exist.
The Daily Caller reported the exchange and noted that Kaine "referred to sanctuary cities as a ‘phantom’" during the interview.
"When Donald Trump kind of goes after these phantom sanctuary cities and talks about how bad they are, basically what he’s going after is police chiefs," Kaine said. "And I trust police chiefs in terms of knowing what should be done to keep their communities safer and police departments and mayors a lot more than I trust Donald Trump."
"But why do you say phantom?" Cuomo asked. "You know that there are places that refuse to cooperate with ICE [Immigrations and Customs Enforcement] and they have their assembly of different reasons for why they do it, but sanctuary cities are real. They exist. They’re not phantom."
The Daily Caller pointed out that the federal government says that sanctuary cities exist.
Sanctuary cities are certainly not a phantom. The federal government has acknowledged their existence and many of them are soon to have federal law enforcement funding cut off. Over one third of American citizens live in these jurisdictions that do not comply with Immigration and Customs Enforcement efforts to detain criminal aliens.
Stephen Miller, Donald Trump's national policy director, told the Washington Free Beacon that the statement was an "insult to the countless Americans" that have died because of Sanctuary City policies.
"Tim Kaine's comment is an insult to the countless Americans who have been killed by Sanctuary City policies, and is further evidence that Clinton-Kaine have no regard for the innocent lives threatened their open borders policies," he said. "There are now 300 federally-recognized Sanctuary Cities, which, in a 19-month period, together refused more than 17,000 detainers for high-risk illegal immigrants and criminals resulting in harm to countless Americans. Kaine should retract his comment at once, and apologies to the families who have suffered."
Note: This article has been updated.