Most Central Americans came to America via the Sanctuary movement. What began informally on the Southwest border in the early 1980s grew into a nationwide network of “underground railways” terminating in hundreds of “sanctuary” terminals before the end of the decade.
Headquarters of CASA de Maryland
The illegal immigration debate has become an urgent focal point of American politics. Liberal politicians from the White House on down have vigorously advocated for illegal immigrant amnesty and lax border enforcement in a naked attempt to bolster prospective voter rolls.
This controversy has been brewing for some time in Maryland, whose Hispanic population more than doubled between 2000 and 2010. Under Governor Martin O’Malley’s sanctuary policies the state has become an illegal alien magnet. The current cost of illegals in Maryland is estimated to be $1.7 billion per year, more than three-quarters of the state’s $2 billion structural deficit.
Taxpayer ire overflowed this March with the passage of Maryland’s Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act, granting in-state college tuition rates to illegals. A nonpartisan coalition of concerned Marylanders launched a petition drive to delay the measure and place it on the 2012 ballot as a referendum. They needed 55,736 signatures. They received twice that amount.
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