California Plotting to Defy Sanctuary City Crackdown
What the radical state attorney general has up his sleeve.
The Trump administration aims to withhold nearly $18 million in federal grant money from states that offer sanctuary to illegals. California’s attorney general Xavier Becerra is pondering a plan to grab the federal money and still protect those who entered the country illegally.
A Sacramento Bee report cites a “former Justice Department official familiar with California officials’ thinking.” According to this unnamed official, the federal conditions are “illegal,” and “if Congress wanted these requirements to be part of the grant funding decision, they would have written it into the law.”
In this view, only Congress has the power to set conditions for grant money, and Becerra should sue the Trump administration to get the funds. According to the Bee report, “one source cautioned” that the attorney general could still change his mind.
Becerra, a veteran of the Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano De Aztlan, was once in contention as a running mate for Hillary Clinton. As a congressman, Becerra blocked funds for the war on terrorist groups such as Al Qaeda, claiming that he wanted to avoid “another Vietnam.” He also voted against a commendation for US troops’ service in Iraq.
Becerra remains uncritical of sanctuary cities that shelter violent criminals. Those include Juan Francisco Lopez Sanchez, who gunned down Kate Steinle, and Luis Bracamonte, who killed sheriff’s deputies Danny Oliver and Michael Davis in 2014. Like previous attorney general Kamala Harris, now the Democrats’ rising star, Becerra has never cited either case as a failure of immigration enforcement. If he harbors any sympathy for the victims’ families it has yet to emerge.
While the attorney general ponders the lawsuit, California’s labor commissioner Julie Su wants to bar federal immigration officers from offices that adjudicate workplace claims. The policy, like the sanctuary state measure, enjoys overwhelming support among Democrats.
“The atmosphere of fear created by Trump and ICE’s expanded dragnet hurt all California workers,” Assemblyman David Chiu told the Sacramento Bee. “We have to do everything we can to fight back.”
Tani Cantil-Sakauye, Chief Justice of California’s supreme court, told Jeff Sessions that she was “deeply concerned” that immigration agents “appear to be stalking undocumented immigrants in our courthouses to make arrests.” The Chief Justice duly requested that ICE agents stay out of California’s courthouses, safe and ideal places to locate violent criminals in the country illegally.
Kate Steinle was gunned down not far from Cantil-Sakauye’s office, but the Chief Justice has not lamented that the killer was able to enter the country illegally multiple times. Nor has the Schwarzenegger nominee chided San Francisco for releasing the felon.
In California, it’s not just about protecting illegals from ICE. Leading Democrats want to spend public funds in that cause.
Former state senate boss Darrell Steinberg, now major of Sacramento, wants to spend $300,000 on a network of groups to aid “city residents with immediate immigration problems.” Steinberg wants those with “minor offenses” such as DUIs to be eligible, even though drunk drivers cause nearly 1,000 deaths a year in the Golden State.
Last year in San Diego County, drunken illegal Esteysi Sanchez ran over 69-year-old homeless man Jack Tenhulzen and dragged his body for more than a mile. The case did not prompt leading Democrats to call for tighter enforcement of immigration laws.
Meanwhile, as the state surges against Trump, Obamacare is hammering Californians with hefty premium hikes. The establishment media report the average premium hike as 12.5 percent, slightly down from last year’s 13.2 percent increase, but that is not the whole story.
In 22 California counties the rates are set to increase by an average of 33.2 percent. Those who opt to switch plans still face hikes of nearly 30 percent. Nowhere are the rates going down and even supporters blame Obamacare for “widespread consumer misery.”
As Larry Elder noted, Obamacare was simply demolition to make way for government monopoly health care, which Democrats peddle as “single payer” or the “public option.” The massive failure of the “Affordable Care Act,” now punishing Californians on every hand, has touched off no second thoughts among leading Democrats.
They prefer to keep it, rather than repeal and replace. Their preferential option is to target the Trump administration with lawsuits and obstruction.
California’s secretary of state Alex Padilla finds “absolutely no proof, no evidence of massive voter fraud in California or anywhere across the country.” Even so, Padilla is blocking the federal investigation of voter fraud and noncitizen voting is getting more traction in the Golden State.
“Let’s make our state more democratic – by guaranteeing California’s noncitizens the right to vote in local and state elections,” argues Connecting California columnist Joe Mathews of Zócalo Public Square.
“In this country, there is no constitutional prohibition against noncitizens voting,” writes Mathews, co-author of California Crackup. “States decide who gets to vote. For most of American history, voting by noncitizens was commonplace. Given Trump’s threats both to immigrants and democracy, this is the moment to give the franchise back to noncitizens.”
