The Trump administration has now logged more than twelve consecutive months of zero interior releases at the border, removed upward of 675,000 illegal aliens, and driven southwest border crossings to historic lows. Sanctuary holdouts like Boston are still rejecting every ICE detainer that hits their desk, and the communities they claim to protect are absorbing the consequences.

I watched the LA riots up close in 1992 from inside the presidential motorcade for George H.W. Bush. Streets burned, businesses were stripped bare, and ordinary people paid the price for a city that had decided accountability was optional. That experience never leaves you. Sanctuary policies are this generation’s nullification, the same doctrine antebellum governors dressed in states’ rights language before federal authority made the point the hard way. As someone who has spent three decades structuring complex deals, advising ultra-high-net-worth families, and testifying as an expert witness on fiduciary duty, I’ll tell you what I tell juries: principals who refuse to honor their obligations always create casualties. The only variable is who pays.

Federal immigration enforcement belongs to Washington. The Supreme Court resolved this in Arizona v. United States (2012), holding that states cannot enact conflicting immigration rules or obstruct federal officers in the lawful discharge of their duties. The legal line is workable: passive non-cooperation, cities declining to deploy their own resources for federal enforcement, is........

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