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Texas governor pledges to ban sanctuary cities in the Lone Star State
Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

Texas governor pledges to ban sanctuary cities in the Lone Star State

Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott took to Twitter late Sunday night to announce his plan to ban sanctuary cities in his state while other governors and mayors across the country vow to continue protecting illegal immigrants from deportation.

The governor's push to outlaw sanctuary cities in the Lone Star State, as well as his executive order to cut funding to such municipalities, follows a comment from a Twitter user wondering what Abbott planned to do about Travis County's newly elected Democratic sheriff, Sally Hernandez, who has vowed not to cooperate with federal officials on immigration issues. Such a move would make Austin, which is located in Travis County, the state's first true sanctuary city.

On the campaign trail, President-elect Donald Trump's pledge to crack down on illegal immigration was one of his foundational promises. In an interview earlier this month on CBS' "60 Minutes," the billionaire businessman said he plans to deport illegal immigrants with criminal records:

What we are going to do is get the people that are criminal and have criminal records, gang members, drug dealers, where a lot of these people, probably 2 million — it could be even 3 million — we are getting them out of our country or we are going to incarcerate.

After the border is secure and after everything gets normalized, we’re going to make a determination on the people that they’re talking about, who are terrific people — they’re terrific people — but we are going to make a determination at that. But before we make that determination … it’s very important, we are going to secure our border.

Following those comments, several Democratic mayors and governors have said they will ignore federal laws on immigration. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti both vowed to oppose Trump on deporting criminal illegal immigrants.

And in a statement following the Nov. 8 election, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel promised to defy President-elect Trump, saying, "Chicago will always be a sanctuary city."

Trump, for his part, has stated that he intends to cut federal funding to sanctuary cities.

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