Sanctuary city silliness has been spreading for quite some time. The term is broad and vague, so there’s no definitive description. It generally means policies that protect or welcome illegal immigrants. Los Angeles probably had the earliest official policy in 1979 when they prohibited police from asking crime suspects about their immigration status.
About the last decade, the sanctuary movement has grown more rapidly as illegal immigration increased and problems worsened. Part globalism and part Democrat voter drive, the Obama Administration was particularly supportive with their radical open borders policies. The election of Trump was a resounding repudiation of illegal immigration and open borders.
So called sanctuary cities have been snubbing and even thwarting federal immigration laws and their enforcement for years with impunity, but President Trump vowed to end that nonsense. Having abandoned the American worker, Democrats doubled down on supporting illegal aliens over Americans as part of their rabid resistance to Trump. California became the first official sanctuary state last year passing laws criminalizing voluntary cooperation with federal immigration enforcement officers, prohibiting local and state police from alerting federal authorities about illegal aliens in custody, and creating a state requirement to inspect federal detention facilities.
Not much happened until Attorney General Jeff Sessions finally sued California this month over those laws. Perhaps coincidental, but when Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf compromised an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raid by publically warning illegal aliens, it seemed to be the last straw. Although defended by Democrats, the Mayor endangered and impeded law enforcement; and simply aided the escape of dangerous illegal immigrant criminals. An indignant Sessions warned California in person.
California Democrats are panicking. Governor Jerry Brown called it a declaration of war, but after that they could only come up with tired ad hominem attacks about lying, racism, and kissing up to Trump. The amusing irony is the patron saint of open borders, Barack Hussein Obama, may have given Sessions the cudgel to beat back California’s illegal immigration insanity.
David French writes in the National Review how Arizona in 2012 enacted laws increasing penalties for illegal immigration and enhancing police powers to enforce federal immigration laws. Having little interest in enforcing immigration statutes, the Obama administration was having none of that, so they successfully sued Arizona. They established supremacy of federal immigration laws and that immigration is solely a federal jurisdiction. So California is certain to be reversed and they know it. They just never expected anyone to fight back.
This does present a states’ rights conundrum. Why shouldn’t Arizona be allowed to protect itself? And why shouldn’t California be allowed to administer their populace as they see fit?
Sessions rightly noted that southern Democrats could not nullify federal civil rights laws, so if proper immigration policy is a national goal to benefit and protect all American citizens, no state can create illegal immigration chaos that could harm the rights of Americans.
California Senator Kamala Harris chastised Sessions (who successfully prosecuted the KKK in Alabama) as some kind of civil war throw back. She declared “California is the future.” Examining that prospect is frightening. Nearly bankrupt, the super high tax state of California is destroying their middle class and scaring off businesses. Everything is extraordinarily expensive, so only the rich survive and average citizens become more dependent on government (a Democrat’s dream). A fourth of all homeless in America live in California; people are literally being driven into the streets. Add to that the country’s worst outbreaks of public pestilence, like hepatitis and tuberculosis.
Americans including many Californians reject this dysfunctional vision. Americans are not xenophobic. We welcome legal immigrants who want to become Americans; we are indeed a nation of immigrants. But America needs order to prosper so that we still have an American dream to share.
“For God is not a God of disorder but of peace--as in all the congregations of the Lord's people.” 1 Corinthians 14:33
