Across the U.S., hundreds of so-called “sanctuary cities” offer a place of refuge to illegal aliens, by refusing to report them to federal law enforcement for crimes that are solely immigration-related.

A number of mayors of such cities have publicly banded together to resist Donald Trump on immigration, and it’s hard to understand why, other than trying to score political points for “resisting” Trump.

Sanctuary cities certainly don’t provide any benefit to the legal majority in those cities, and they have incentivized a disproportionate share of the nation’s illegals to reside in just a handful of cities.

So, then, what’s the case for them?

A former DNC press secretary, Jose Aristimuno, appeared on Tucker Carlson Tonight Monday to make the case. According to the Daily Caller:

Aristimuno argued that sanctuary cities are doing well economically and are actually safer than non-sanctuary cities.

However, The Daily Caller founder informed Aristimuno that a recent UC-Riverside study found that there isn’t a discernible difference in crime rates between sanctuary cities and non-sanctuary cities. In fact, the study found that violent crime is, on average, slightly higher in sanctuary cities, although the researchers concluded the difference was not statistically significant.

“That’s not true,” Aristimuno claimed.

“This is the biggest study of its kind that’s shown that, and you have on your side…what?” Carlson said, somewhat dumbfounded.

“Look, the real problem is that our current president, as you know, is trying to defund sanctuary cities,” Aristimuno responded, dodging the point. “What that is actually going to do is our police, our men in uniform, are actually going to be less safe.”

“Fine, blow right past the study,” Carlson laughed.

Watch below:

[Note: This post was written by Matt Palumbo. He is a co-author of the new book A Paradoxical Alliance: Islam and the Left, and can be found on Twitter @MattPalumbo12]