Sanctuary cities exporting migrants to red states would face payback under new bill

EXCLUSIVE — Nonsanctuary cities and states could retaliate against sanctuary cities that have shipped out migrants from their streets to Republican-run jurisdictions under a new proposal.

Rep. Burgess Owens (R-UT) will debut legislation this week to cut off hundreds of millions of dollars in Federal Emergency Management Agency funding to cities that, overwhelmed with illegal immigrants who have been released into the country from the southern border, have opted to use federal grant money to pay for bus, train, and plane tickets to move migrants to other towns.

“Right now we have migrants showing up at our airports, bus stations, and city halls with no support, services, or sponsors after being dumped by so-called sanctuary cities,” Owens said in a statement provided to the Washington Examiner about the Sanctuary City Oversight and Responsibility in Enforcement, or SCORE, Act.

Owens was spurred into action after Salt Lake City received migrants from Denver in June.

Denver, which received nearly $13 million from the Biden administration to help respond to migrants arriving on its streets in 2023 and 2024, sent some migrants to Salt Lake City without notice. Salt Lake City and Utah haven’t received additional federal money to deal with the impact of the border crisis.

Denver is one of countless cities nationwide that have grappled to deal with the more than 5 million illegal immigrants who crossed the border and have been allowed to remain in the country since President Joe Biden took office in January 2021.

A spokesperson for Denver Mayor Mike Johnston, a Democrat, told the Utah News Dispatch in June that the city had assisted 42,000 migrants who sought the city’s help.

Although migrants released at the border are free to travel anywhere in the country, more than 120,000 have voluntarily taken state-provided buses in Texas to cities across the country, a measure that Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) took in 2022 to ease the burden on the public transportation system. Just 19,000 have boarded buses to Denver.

Amid the influx of migrants, Denver purchased nearly 1,700 tickets for migrants to travel to Salt Lake City between 2022 and earlier this year, according to local media outlet Denverite.

Gov. Spencer Cox (R-UT) said in a statement on June 14 that Denver’s decision to send migrants to Salt Lake City was “completely unacceptable.”

“We recently learned that the Democrat mayor of Denver has been sending illegal immigrants to Utah without proper notification or approval,” Cox said in a post to X. “Every state has received illegal immigrants and Utah’s resources are completely depleted. All 50 states, including Utah, are now border states due to the failed immigration policies of President Biden and Congress.”

Although Salt Lake City is governed by a Democratic mayor, it has not passed a city ordinance identifying itself as a sanctuary zone, a place where local law enforcement will not turn over most migrants in police custody for non-immigration offenses to federal immigration authorities. Sanctuary cities are generally seen as welcoming to immigrants regardless of their legal status to be in the country.

Under the Biden administration, FEMA has distributed a total of $700 million in taxpayer dollars to help cities, states, and nonprofit groups respond to the border crisis.

The congressman’s office stated that Denver used FEMA Shelter and Services Program grants to pay for travel vouchers for migrants to travel to places such as Salt Lake City. Owens viewed those types of expenditures as inappropriate.

FEMA SSP funds are intended for recipients to assist migrants in custody after they were released by the Border Patrol and permitted to remain in the country pending court proceedings, typically several years in the future. Funds are often spent on housing migrants when shelters are overpopulated, food, clothing, and other needs.

“Self-declared sanctuary cities like Denver are abusing loopholes in the law and using federal taxpayer dollars to transport illegal immigrants to non-sanctuary cities like Salt Lake City,” Owens said.

In another example, New York City’s Democratic mayor, Eric Adams, copied Abbott’s playbook and offered free bus tickets for migrants in his city to take a one-way ride to Canada.

A government official in Quebec, Canada’s second-most populated province, said in February that Adams should immediately stop sending migrants to Canada.

Republicans balked at Adams for how they said he was hypocritically trying to get immigrants out of his backyard after Adams had criticized Abbott and Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) for flying immigrants to Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts.

The SCORE Act would prohibit FEMA’s SSP grant money from being used by recipients to transport migrants to states, cities, or counties without letting receiving officials know in advance, as well as documentation of where each individual will reside once there. Each person must have an organization, family member, or sponsor at the destination city where he or she will stay with to avoid overcrowding shelters.

The bill would also require the Government Accountability Office to draft a quarterly report on which states and states have received FEMA grants.

Johnston’s office did not respond to a request for comment. Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall, a Democrat, declined to comment.