Judicial Watch has a new report out this week which you may not want to read if you were planning on having a nice day. In it, they study the numbers from a recent analysis by the Center for Immigration Studies which examines the number of “sanctuary cities” around the country and the volume of criminal illegal aliens who were released in defiance of ICE directives. The figures may not surprise those who have following the story, but they won’t make you feel any better either.

As the U.S. Senate considers a bill to slash funding for local governments that protect violent illegal immigrants, a new study reveals that hundreds of sanctuary cities nationwide released thousands of criminal aliens from jail rather than turn them over to federal authorities for deportation…

That’s because in less than a year 340 sanctuary cities, counties and states around the U.S. released 9,295 alien offenders that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was seeking to deport. More than half had significant prior criminal histories and 600 were released at least twice by jurisdictions that protect criminal aliens from deportation by refusing to comply with ICE detainers. The figures were made public recently by the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), a nonprofit dedicated to researching the consequences of legal and illegal immigration into the United States.

The fine grain details don’t get any better as they tunnel into the figures:

• 58% had prior felony charges or convictions
• 37% had serious prior misdemeanor charges
• 2,320 were subsequently arrested within the eight-month time period studied for new crimes

This report comes at an opportune time as the Senate prepares to consider the Stop Sanctuary Policies and Protect Americans Act. The bill was introduced by Ted Cruz, among others, and sponsored by David Vitter. If it makes it into law, the bill would withhold federal funding from sanctuary cities, states or other entities that fail to comply with Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued detainer requests for illegal aliens. If you can’t convince them through political pressure, hit them in the pocketbook. (Or so the theory goes.)

The odds of this getting a signature from Barack Obama are virtually nil, but it would at least get it on the national radar and potentially set it up for passage in 2017. Either way, Congress owes it to the family of Kathryn Steinle and all of the others affected by these policies to at least try.