Close Foreign Consulates in U.S. Sanctuary Cities

All major countries, such as Germany, Japan, and Australia, have a network of consulates across the United States. These consulates engage in many legitimate diplomatic activities, such as trade promotion and cultural outreach, as well as serving as platforms to assist their citizens. Los Angeles is home to over 90 consulates, while Chicago has over 80

The largest consulate networks are maintained by migrant-sending countries, such as Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador, and others, all with massive national diasporas in the United States. For these governments, their activities in support of their citizens in the U.S. dwarf all their other diplomatic activities. Mexico, with some 40 million persons in El Norte, around 5 million illegally present, has the largest network with an unprecedented 52 consulates scattered across the American interior. 

El Salvador has 22 consulates attending to the needs of its huge migratory population. Some 25 percent of all Salvadorans live in the U.S.; over 1 million are illegal migrants. Honduras has 15 consulates, supporting 1 million illegal migrants; Ecuador, 13 consulates and over half a million illegals; the Dominican Republic, 11 consulates and 200,000 illegals; and Colombia, 13 consulates, 400,000 illegals. It is a long list that goes beyond the Western hemisphere and includes other countries like India and the Philippines. 

Although poorly understood by Americans who have virtually no contact with them, these consulates contribute in subtle (and sometimes not subtle) ways to America’s ongoing immigration chaos and lawlessness. All diplomats dedicated to this support work—known in the trade as consular officers—have a legitimate right to assist their citizens, including even those unlawfully present. But the problem is that many of these consulates have openly joined forces with America’s domestic sanctuary resistance movement. Consulates are off the reservation when their diplomats are conspiring against and resisting Trump administration policies to detain and remove illegal migrants.