President-elect Trump was given a mandate by the American people to implement his full immigration agenda and needs to use leadership, relationship building and fidelity to the rule of law to accomplish the goals he has outlined, former House candidate Orlando Sonza told Fox News Digital.
"The American people, they delivered a mandate to the next president of the United States, and to President Trump the mandate is that this illegal immigration problem is something that needs to be fixed, that it needs to be fixed now," Sonza, an attorney and former Republican candidate in Ohio's 1st Congressional District, said.
He explained that one of the "biggest challenges" Trump will face in order to deliver that immigration mandate is public officials "continuing to defy the law" in liberal jurisdictions.
"What we've seen is clear leadership in President Trump that he's not going to go for it," Sonza said. "The sanctuary cities and sanctuary jurisdictions that are trying to now protect illegal immigrants, many of them criminals that have broken our laws, not just on the southern border, but here within our border as well, tried to harbor them within their jurisdiction. No — that is what undermines our national security and our safety in our community. And in President Trump, holding those cities and jurisdictions accountable is exactly, again, what we need in order to go back to a land of laws, and so this comes down to leadership."
NEW YORK VOTERS WANT STATE TO SUPPORT TRUMP DEPORTATIONS, POLL FINDS
Democrats across the country have announced their intentions to attempt to defy Trump’s plan to enforce immigration laws and deport criminals by pushing sanctuary policies or trying to "Trump-proof" their jurisdictions. Sonza told Fox News Digital that deportation is not only a useful tool, but a necessary one as well.
"At the end of the day, it comes back to righting a wrong that we've seen in the last four years, going back to the way immigration should be, and that is the legal way when it comes to deportation," Sonza said. "President Trump has been very clear on his strategy. There are priorities in terms of the prosecution and the deportation of dangerous individuals, including human traffickers, drug cartels, violent gangs like MS 13. They don't belong in our country, and they certainly have tried to exploit the immigration loopholes that they’ve found on the southern border, smuggling people, drugs, weapons, inflicting devastating harm on our communities. They absolutely, first and foremost, have to be deported."
TRUMP'S ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION CRACKDOWN WELCOMED BY BORDER TOWN POLICE STRAINED BY BIDEN POLICIES
"The next are those that have really tried to take advantage of the system, prosecuting individuals who have reentered the United States illegally after deportation. You know, many having criminal records themselves, blatantly disregarding U.S. sovereignty, posing ongoing threats to public safety. Look at visa overstays accounting for nearly 40% of illegal immigration. That is the very thing that President Trump in his plan is targeting by addressing violent criminals, addressing criminals that have broken laws within our community and then addressing overstays and fraudulent documentation. What President Trump is looking to do is to protect the integrity of lawful immigration, to ensure fairness for those that actually follow the rules," he said.
Sonza told Fox News Digital that Trump will be able to overcome those who try to ignore federal immigration law not only by withholding federal funding to sanctuary cities, but also by "promoting accountability and a strong cooperation with law enforcement."
"President Trump's plan of fostering that strong cooperation between federal and local law enforcement is exactly what we need in order to ensure that communities are protected while upholding the rule of law," he said. "So I think what we're actually going to see is there is going to be, I think, much smoother cooperation than what a lot of people are expecting, because I think this plan of President Trump is shared by many, in that it's going to fix a lot of the problems that we see regarding illegal immigration in our country."
Trump’s critics have cited concerns about the cost of mass deportations, which Sonza, a West Point graduate and former officer in the U.S. Army, said was a concern he also once shared until he looked into it more deeply.
"It actually took research on my part and research of many Americans to realize the reality, and that is the long-term burden of keeping illegal immigrants in the United States costs taxpayers an exorbitant amount of money," Sonza said. "Conservative estimates show that illegal immigration costs us taxpayers $151 billion annually."
Sonza, the son of legal immigrants, told Fox News Digital that the "overwhelming number of Americans" who voted for Trump believe, as he does, that "illegal immigration poses one of the most pressing challenges to our country today."
Sonza told Fox News Digital that voters resoundingly voted to "go back to law and order" by voting for Trump and that he is confident Trump's leadership, coupled with aggressive implementation of his deportation plan, will yield results.
"The illegal way of doing immigration has cost Americans," Sonza told Fox News Digital. "It has put Americans in a less safe position. It has undermined our national security. It has forced the drugs like fentanyl, the opioid epidemic like we see here in southwest Ohio, to now continue to just exacerbate as a problem in our community."
"We want to go back to a country of laws and one that keeps the American people safe and one that looks at the best interests, really of all people, whether it's those that tried to come into the United States or are already here as citizens, their best interests in mind by upholding the rule of law and when it comes to immigration, doing it the legal way," he said.
