Sanctuary State

California is now a sanctuary state. Is non-citizen voting next?

October 7, 2017 By Joel Fox 24 Comments

With Gov. Jerry Brown’s signature on Senate Bill 54, California now calls itself a sanctuary state. There is strong symbolism in the move, although California governments’ actions relative to individuals in the country illegally will change little in many parts of the state.

Brown’s demand that some 700 additional crimes be added to the list that federal agents could use in examining immigrants changed the bill author Sen. Kevin de León’s original intent to offer sanctuary to most immigrants except those who committed the most heinous crimes.

Brown went out of his way to write in his message accompanying his signature that the bill “strikes a balance that will protect public safety.”

Opponents of Brown’s action disagree. State senator Ted Gaines predicted that California would become “a giant magnet pulling every illegal alien criminal in the country to our state.”

For many supporters of the sanctuary state bill, SB 54 did not go far enough. They accepted the final version for the message it sent, the symbolism. But they want more. Where does the push for gaining more protections for illegal immigrants go now and how far will California voters allow it to go?

It is doubtful that the list of crimes that Brown insisted be added before he signed the bill would be reduced. Even a new governor will not do that. The public safety community still remains split over the effects of the bill.

Likely there will be a push for more empowerment for immigrants. Already illegal immigrants have been granted drivers licenses. Some local governments have set up taxpayer-funded legal aid to immigrants in the country without legal documents. San Francisco voters approved a measure last November to allow parents of children in the school system, whether the parents are legal citizens or not, to vote in school board elections. Now, California declares itself a sanctuary state.

Don’t be surprised if the next push is to grow the voting franchise for non-citizen immigrants.

Symbolic measures do matter in moving public affairs debates.

Joel Fox is editor and Co-Publisher of Fox and Hounds Daily.

This article originally appeared on Fox and Hounds Daily.

Filed Under: Top Stories Tagged With: Immigration, Jerry Brown, Kevin de Leon, Sanctuary State, SB54

California on the verge of ‘sanctuary state’ status after legislative deal

September 14, 2017 By Drew Gregory Lynch 15 Comments

Gov. Jerry Brown and Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de León, D-Los Angeles, reached a compromise on the state’s “sanctuary state” bill this week, in a deal that amends the legislation to expand the ability of law enforcement to cooperate with federal authorities.

The amended Senate Bill 54 “prevents our state and local law enforcement resources from being diverted to tear families apart. California will protect our communities from the Trump administration’s radical and hateful immigration policy agenda,” de León said in a statement.

As part of the compromise, under the revised SB54, police can share information with federal authorities about inmates convicted of hundreds of crimes that were not part of the original language. These crimes include serious or violent felonies, felony drunk driving, unlawful possession of a deadly weapon and felony drug crimes.

But the bill still prohibits law enforcement from inquiring as to a person’s immigration status, detaining suspected illegal immigrants for ICE, and from acting as federal immigration agents.

“This bill protects public safety and people who come to California to work hard and make this state a better place,” Gov. Brown’s statement read.

Under the amendment, federal agents will be permitted to interview suspected illegal aliens in jails and to access state databases – actions that were previously prohibited.

The California Sheriffs Association still opposes the bill, despite the changes, believing it puts too great of a barrier between local enforcement and federal authorities.

Activists on the left largely praised the agreement. Pablo Alvarado, executive director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, called the deal a “victory for migrants,” according to the Sacramento Bee.

The bill must still be passed by the state Assembly.

SB54 comes amid a larger national debate about “sanctuary” policies, with conservatives and many law enforcement groups maintaining that they provide a safe haven for violate criminal aliens, while liberals and immigration activists argue the so-called “sanctuaries” encourage undocumented aliens to cooperate with police without fear of deportation.

The bill could also be a model for other states eager to push back against the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.

For California, it’s just the latest act of defiance against the Trump agenda in Washington, as Attorney General Xavier Becerra on Monday sued the administration over its decision to rescind the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, arguing that doing away with the order violates the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause, citing fears that the administration may use “Dreamer” data to find and deport them.

However, President Trump has said there will be “no action” to that effect for six months as Congress attempts to craft a legislative fix.

“I think everyone recognizes the scope and breadth of the Trump decision to terminate DACA hits hardest here,” Becerra said.

About one quarter of the 800,000 recipients of DACA live in the Golden State.

This article was originally published by CalWatchdog.com

Filed Under: Top Stories Tagged With: ICE, Jerry Brown, Kevin de Leon, Sanctuary State

California’s Attempt At “Massive Resistance” as Sanctuary State

August 11, 2017 By Tony Quinn 5 Comments

California’s decision to become a “Sanctuary State” and defy the federal government on immigration, likely to become law later this month, places California in the company of state’s rights extremists that once tried to stop public school integration by much the same means.

In 1956, in response to the Supreme Court’s 1954 school integration decision, the state of Virginia devised a theory that it had the right to defy a federal law it did not like and could retain its racially segregated public schools. This became known as Massive Resistance, state sponsored resistance to federal law. California now seems set to go down the same path with its Sanctuary State bill that tries to prevent federal immigration law enforcement.

Drawing from pre-Civil War ideas that states could nullify a federal law they did not like, Virginia determined to stop integration of its public schools by “interposing” itself between its segregated schools and the federal government that told them to desegregate. Virginia passed a statute refusing to cooperate with federal directives to integrate its schools by every means the state had, including closing public schools rather than desegregate them.

This is essentially what Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de Leon is doing with his Senate Bill 54. It would prohibit state and local law enforcement from using their resources to “investigate, interrogate, detain, detect, or arrest persons for immigration enforcement purposes” (legislative analysis). Constitutionally this is little different than what Virginia tried to do to stop integration 60 years ago.

Before the Civil War, John C. Calhoun of South Carolina devised the idea that states could nullify federal laws and find them unconstitutional. The Civil War ended efforts at nullification of federal laws. Interposition was a 20^th Century variation on this, and it was no more successful. Virginia claimed state power to declare federal actions to force school integration invalid as de Leon wants to declare federal immigration practices invalid.

Many California communities have agreements with federal immigration officials that they detain illegal immigrates they have arrested for other offenses. SB 54 would make this illegal, but what’s really going on is the desire of de Leon that California to interpose itself between the Trump Administration and its enforcement of existing immigration laws, even at the cost of endangering innocent Californians.

“There’s a lot of bills in Sacramento right now that are tying our hands and keeping us from doing the jobs we’re elected to do, which is to protect the citizens in our county,” said Orange County Sheriff Sandra Hutchens. “It’s very political. It’s anti-Trump.”

Massive Resistance was the same thing. As one congressman put it at the time, the objective was to stop the federal government from forcing “the mixing of the races” on the people of Virginia. In 1959, the school board of Price Edward County closed all its public schools and used the funds to set up private all white academies for the county’s white students, leaving black students with no schools to go to.

Eventually, federal courts did intervene in the 1960s and brought Massive Resistance to an end. The U.S. Supreme Court made it clear that school desegregation was the law of the land, and while it took nearly a decade, Virginia did finally integrate its public schools.

Eventually de Leon and the legislature will lose its Sanctuary State crusade. There are jurisdictions within California that want to cooperate in the deportation of illegal immigrant criminals they are holding. Federal courts will not uphold a law that prevents a county sheriff from doing his or her job.

Sen. de Leon may also want to read the opinion of Justice Anthony Kennedy in the 2012 ruling striking down an Arizona law that tried to set up its own immigration law. “The National Government has significant power to regulate immigration. Arizona may have understandable frustrations with the problems caused by illegal immigration while that process continues, but the State may not pursue policies that undermine federal law,” Kennedy wrote.

In 2010, Arizona was involved in its own version of Massive Resistance, trying to enact a law that it allowed it to enforce immigration law as it saw fit regardless of the preferences of the federal government. The Obama administration took Arizona to court and won.

It will not take long for the Trump administration to apply the same legal test to California’s State Sanctuary law. Given Justice Kennedy’s opinion, California’s attempt to interpose itself between illegal immigrants and the enforcement of federal law will be no more successful than have been other forms of Massive Resistance throughout our history.

This article was originally published by Fox and Hounds Daily.

Filed Under: Top Stories Tagged With: Immigration, Kevin de Leon, Sanctuary State

California Closer to Becoming ‘Sanctuary State’

July 9, 2017 By Tim Donnelly 19 Comments

The California State Assembly Judiciary Committee approved Democrats’ so-called “sanctuary state” bill on Wednesday, over the objections of law enforcement groups and Democrat-leaning sheriffs’ unions.

According to the Courthouse News Service (CNS), State Senate President Pro Tem Kevin De León (D-Los Angeles) claims that his Senate Bill 54, the “California Values Act,” is designed to prohibit all law enforcement in California from any and all cooperation with what he has dubbed the “Trump Deportation Machine.”

Earlier this year, De León told the committee that “half his family is in the country illegally” and that his relatives regularly commit identity theft in order to work in the U.S.

For De León, the new bill is all about Trump. He reportedly said that if another Republican had won the presidency, his bill would not be necessary.

De León insists that his bill “doesn’t safeguard” criminals, but Santa Barbara County Sheriff Bill Brown, current president of the California Sheriffs Association, disagrees:

“We believe this bill provides sanctuary to criminals and makes our communities less safe,” Brown reportedly said. “SB 54 would result in many dangerous criminal offenders being released to our streets without proper communication and cooperation with immigration authorities.”

Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed a substantively similar bill (AB 1081) in 2012. In his veto letter, Brown wrote, “I am unable to sign this bill as written,” saying the bill barred cooperation in some instances he believes were serious. “I believe it’s unwise to interfere with a sheriff’s discretion to comply with a detainer issued for people with these kinds of troubling criminal records,” he explained.

In spite of the fact that a many of the criminal alien gang members arrested in recent raids in Los Angeles had gang ties to the notoriously brutal El Salvadoran prison gang known as MS-13, and had committed serious crimes previously, almost all of them would, arguably, have been shielded by SB 54 if it were currently the law.

Tim Donnelly is a former California State Assemblyman and author, currently on a book tour for his new book: Patriot Not Politician: Win or Go Homeless. He ran for governor in 2014.

FaceBook: https://www.facebook.com/tim.donnelly.12/

This article was originally published by Breitbart.com/California

Filed Under: Top Stories Tagged With: Immigration, Kevin de Leon, Sanctuary State, Tim Donnelly

California “Sanctuary State” bill a Trojan horse in waiting

June 28, 2017 By Richard Eber 12 Comments

If the Republican Party of California were to have a secret wish list, they would be in favor of the Assembly passing the Senate Bill 54 “Sanctuary State” legislation that has already gained approval by a party-line 27-12 tally in the Senate.

Given the nature of the legislation where state law enforcement would refuse to co-operate with federal agencies to locate and deport undocumented residents who run afoul with the law, why would the GOP desire passage and have Governor Brown sign the bill that they have bitterly opposed?

The answer is simple. When SB-54 backfires with federal funds being taken away from California law enforcement along with what is sure to be a higher crime rate, voters are bound to take out their frustrations out at the ballot box. The Republican Party of California despite having less than one third of the seats in the Legislature and no statewide office holders may well find itself in a place to gain power once again that has long eluded them.

With California’s tight budget impaired by pension shortfalls for State workers and public assistance given to undocumented residents, losing funds from Washington, D.C., might not prove to be universally popular. Law enforcement and victims of crime are especially effected by the collateral damage SB-54 brings. This is especially true in suburban areas where the sanctuary city movement is weakest.

Where the state would be especially vulnerable is if illegal aliens/undocumented residents are not turned over to ICE and then commit serious crimes. How this could is justified by political leaders such as SB-54’s sponsor Assemblyman Kevin de Leon and candidate for governor Gavin Newsom? Is it possible to hold a pro law and order stance while trying to rationalize the victimization of the next Kate Steinle?

Even if Federal law enforcement funds being taken away from California by the Trump administration are replaced by revenues from the state budget, critics will surely claim sanctuary city legislation will result in fewer pot hole type repairs being taken care of. Even in the highly taxed progressive Golden State, there may limits of how far residents can be pushed in the name of social justice.

Public safety workers in general have been under attack by liberals in California and throughout the rest of the country. From New York with Mayor Bill de Blasio reigning in the police, to Chicago, Ferguson, Los Angeles and San Francisco, law enforcement has been put under increased scrutiny, especially in their dealings with African American citizens.

Use of deadly force, racial profiling and statistical analysis has placed law enforcement in a difficult position trying to justify their policies. Combined with civilian review boards, body cameras and politically correct interrogation procedures, those in Blue have had to adapt to what charitably can be termed defensive law enforcement procedures.

Also playing a role in the battle against crime circa 2017 has been the increased number of unprovoked violent attacks on police officers. It doesn’t take a genius to determine that this alarming trend has been enhanced by negative media coverage they have received from the fifth estate.

The bad press received by policeman has wormed its way into the local political spectrum. Recently, a group of about 400 protesters crashed a Berkeley City Council meeting to protest their involvement at an Urban Shield Expo put on by the department of Homeland Security.

The purpose of Urban Shield is to show new equipment, strategies and practice exercises to assist some 40 law enforcement agencies combat terrorist threats and violent demonstrations. As might be expected the prisoner rights organization Critical Resistance opposed advanced tactical training for law enforcement on the grounds it is oppressive, racist and discriminatory against racial minorities.

Despite a demonstration, shouting match and a couple arrests, even liberal Berkeley did not cave in (at least not that night) to having their police department skip the free federal training program. It was likely a good decision because in the past, law enforcement has been placed in multiple precarious situations in the wacky world of this progressive college town.

However, what occurred in Berkeley is not an isolated incident in California where virtually every aspect of law enforcement is challenged by well meaning groups who don’t especially like those who wear a badge. The first places they attack are any proposals to expand and modernize county jail facilities. Such tactics are the antithesis to the “build it and they will come” school of thought.

What makes this worse is that Federal dollars pay for most of these improvements. Sanctuary city proponents believe that not providing holding cells for illegal alien felons is an important component to their opposition to the activities of ICE.

Anyone wearing a uniform is subject to scrutiny by liberal media critics. Recently, extensive coverage was given to a hunger strike by some 72 inmates at Folsom correctional Institute. Sympathy was given to the prisoners who claimed lousy food, lack of exercise, isolation, poor medical care and substandard vocational training was making their lives miserable.

What wasn’t mentioned is that this group were not exactly Boy Scouts. They are serious felons who are part of an Administrative Segregation Unit. This means that those in this group have been accused of committing serious crimes while being incarcerated (including rape, murder, assault and drug smuggling). When in this program the state tries to determine if they should be prosecuted in order to add time to their mostly lengthy sentences. So if security is a bit tight with them …

Even with law enforcement being sliced and diced by progressive leaders in California, there is no move currently going on to do away with those who protect us from the bad guys. They play an important role when any type of trouble from robbery to domestic abuse ensues. A love-hate relationship has always existed between the two groups. This is why it is important for political leaders in Sacramento to be careful in their criticism of the police because one never knows when they will be needed.

Such an ever present reality is why Gov. Brown should be a follower of Aesop’s Fable reminder of “look before you leap” when it comes to signing SB-54 into law. Even though Brown is half way out the door in his fourth term, he should consider what might happen to his legacy if the sanctuary cities legislation backfires and brings his old Republican enemies into having a real say in state government once again.

Sb-54 may well turn out to be a Trojan horse in waiting. So beware of what you wish for Jerry!

Filed Under: Top Stories Tagged With: Richard Eber, Sanctuary Cities, Sanctuary State

Sen. Kevin de Leon: “Half my family is here illegally”

February 9, 2017 By CPR Editors 24 Comments

California State Senator Joel Anderson, R-El Cajon, makes an appearance on “Fox and Friends” to discuss state Senate President Pro-Tem Kevin de Leon’s recent admission that half of his family is in the state and country illegally.

De Leon, while pushing his new bill, SB54, said, “The reality is, with the executive order and the criteria that has been developed, many individuals, I can tell you half of my family, would be eligible for deportation under the executive order.”

Filed Under: Top Stories Tagged With: Fox and Friends, Joel Anderson, Kevin de Leon, Sanctuary State