A Handful of Politicians Flooded Your City With Illegal Immigrants to Pad Their Vote Counts —

And Now They're Mad Someone's Cleaning It Up

Starring a few power-hungry elected officials who turned "sanctuary city" into a voter registration scheme, eight million New Yorkers who never signed up for any of this, and a novelist who wrote the horror movie about what almost happened to your spare bedroom.

Based on commentary by Douglas Murray, New York Post, February 12, 2026

Let's get one thing straight right out of the gate, because this pisses me off every time I hear it: "New York" didn't declare itself a sanctuary city. New Yorkers didn't vote on that. Nobody knocked on your door in Bay Ridge or Astoria or Staten Island and asked, "Hey, you cool if we convert the Midtown Hilton into a migrant shelter?"

A handful of politicians did that. Politicians who knew exactly what they were doing and exactly who would benefit.

And it sure as hell wasn't you.

Cast your mind back to 2023 — I know, it feels like a century ago, but stick with me. Texas Governor Greg Abbott looked at these self-appointed moral champions in City Hall and said, "Oh you're a sanctuary city? Prove it." And he started putting people on buses.

And the second those buses pulled up? The second the consequences of their own policy showed up on Eighth Avenue? These same politicians who'd been preening about compassion at fundraisers started panicking like somebody lit their hair on fire.

Eric Adams — remember him? — stood in front of cameras and said this crisis could "destroy New York."

Destroy it. His words. The same city whose politicians had been rolling out the red carpet five minutes earlier.

Funny how that works.

It Was Never About Compassion. Follow the Votes. Follow the Cash.

Here's what nobody in mainstream media will say out loud, so I guess I'll do it over drinks.

Why would a handful of politicians voluntarily flood their own city with hundreds of thousands of people who have no legal right to be here, crash the housing market, overwhelm the hospitals, pack the schools, and drain billions from a budget that was already a dumpster fire?

Because they're stupid? Nah. These people are a lot of things but they're not stupid.

Because they're compassionate? Please. These are the same people who step over homeless veterans on their way to ribbon-cutting ceremonies.

They did it because illegal immigrants, once settled, become a permanent political constituency. They need services. Services mean government programs. Government programs mean government jobs. Government jobs mean union dues. Union dues mean campaign donations. And when you start pushing for things like driver's licenses for non-citizens and same-day voter registration and counting non-citizens in the census for redistricting purposes — well, you don't need a PhD in political science to see where this road goes.

It goes straight to a fortified electoral machine that never, ever loses.

That's the game. That's always been the game. "Sanctuary city" was never a humanitarian project. It was an investment. And the returns are measured in votes and seats and power — not in whether Maria from Honduras actually has a decent life.

The politicians get the power. The migrants get a cot in a converted hotel. And actual New Yorkers — the ones paying taxes, riding the subway, trying to get their kids into schools that aren't overflowing — get the bill.

Compassion, baby. Ain't it grand?

A Novelist Wrote the Horror Movie Version, and It's Too Real

Lionel Shriver — the woman who wrote We Need to Talk About Kevin, a book so disturbing it should come with a Xanax prescription — looked at one of the most batshit proposals from that era and said, "Hold my wine, I'm writing this."

Remember when some genius in city government suggested that New Yorkers should take migrants into their own homes? Into your apartment. Your brownstone. Your 600-square-foot studio that already feels like a coffin with a kitchenette?

Shriver's new novel A Better Life imagines what happens when a 62-year-old liberal divorcee named Gloria Bonaventura actually does it. She takes in a young Honduran woman named Martine. Gloria feels righteous. She's saving the world. She's one of the good ones.

Then Martine tells her: "USA no only for Americans. USA for every people."

Then Martine's "brother" shows up. Then the brother's friends. Then Gloria's own son becomes a stranger in his own home. And then everything goes exactly where your gut tells you it's going.

Shriver asks the questions that'll get you disinvited from every dinner party in Park Slope: Is an illegal immigrant who works hard more "American" than a native-born kid who sits on his ass? Who actually deserves to be here? Can one country absorb every human being who wants in?

The politicians don't want you asking those questions. Questions are bad for the machine.

The Law Isn't a Suggestion, No Matter How Many Protests You Throw

So now ICE is out there doing what ICE does — rounding up people who are here illegally, prioritizing the ones who've committed violent crimes. We're talking about convicted rapists. Child molesters. People with actual criminal records who were released back into neighborhoods because some politician decided enforcement was bad optics.

And the response from the same crowd that created this mess?

They're physically blocking ICE agents. Forming human chains. Filming it for social media. Elected officials are encouraging civilians to obstruct federal law enforcement officers who are trying to remove convicted sex offenders from American communities.

Read that again. Slowly.

Politicians. Encouraging citizens. To protect convicted rapists. From deportation.

That's not a resistance movement. That's a protection racket for criminals dressed up as a civil rights march.

And why? Why would any politician encourage that? Because every deportation is one fewer body counted in their district's census numbers. One fewer future voter. One fewer cog in the machine they spent billions of your tax dollars building.

It was never about the people. It was always about the power.

The People Getting Screwed the Hardest Are the Ones Who Did It Right

You want to know who I feel for in all of this? It's not the politicians crying on cable news. They'll land on their feet. They always do.

It's the people who immigrated legally.

Do you have any idea what it takes to come to this country the right way? The paperwork would make your eyes bleed. The wait times are measured in years. Sometimes decades. People sell everything they own, hire lawyers, study English, memorize the Constitution, stand in line at embassies, and follow every single rule — because they actually respect this country enough to knock on the front door instead of climbing through the window.

And then they get to watch millions of people skip every step, walk across a border, get put up in a hotel that costs more per night than their monthly rent, and get defended by protesters when anyone tries to enforce the law.

That's not compassion. That's a slap in the face to every legal immigrant who ever filled out a form.

But the politicians don't talk about those people. Legal immigrants don't need the machine. Legal immigrants already followed the rules. They're not useful.

Who Broke It and Who's Fixing It?

I'll make this simple because apparently it needs to be tattooed on foreheads:

A handful of politicians deliberately left the border open. They flooded cities with people who have no legal status. They spent billions housing them in hotels and shelters. They used the crisis to expand their bureaucracies, pad their census numbers, and build an electoral infrastructure that rewards them for the chaos they created.

Now a different administration is trying to clean it up — which, by the way, is exactly what they were elected to do.

And the people who caused the disaster are screaming the loudest about the cleanup.

That's like torching your kitchen, handing someone a fire extinguisher, and then filing a complaint because they got foam on the countertops.

As the midterms creep closer, polling says Republicans might catch heat for the enforcement. Maybe. But before you get mad at the people holding the mop, maybe ask yourself why nobody's mad at the people who made the mess.

Why are we protesting the extinguisher and not the arsonist?

The Answer Fits on a Bumper Sticker

Follow the law.

That's it. Full stop. The end. Not a 400-page white paper. Not a panel discussion at Davos. Not a hashtag.

The law.

If you want to come to America — and God bless you, millions of good people do — there's a process. Follow it. If you skipped the process and committed crimes after you got here, you should be gone yesterday. If politicians told you the rules don't apply, those politicians lied to you so they could use you.

America has the biggest heart of any country that's ever existed. That's not up for debate. But a big heart without a functioning brain isn't generous — it's reckless. And the only people who benefit from the recklessness are the ones sitting in offices you paid for, counting votes you didn't cast, building a machine that runs on your money and someone else's misery.

The politicians did this. Not New York. Not New Yorkers.

Remember that when the bill comes due.

Original commentary by Douglas Murray, New York Post, February 12, 2026