Commentary and analysis on American politics, culture, and national identity, U.S. foreign policy and international relations, and the state of education
- from a neoconservative perspective! - Keeping an eye on the communist-left so you don't have to!
As the national political system responds to the GOP presidential race and controversies over birthright citizenship, Democrats in California continue to push the envelope on the Mexifornication of the state.
And this is why a lot of folks are bailing out. I connected with a woman from the 2010 tea parties on Facebook, and she moved to Utah. There's a classic old political book called "Exit, Voice, or Loyalty," and exit seems to be the increasingly popular option for those looking to preserve their liberties and maintain their moral selves. California's gone to the dogs.
It started with in-state tuition. Then came driver's licenses, new rules designed to limit deportations and state-funded healthcare for children. And on Monday, in a gesture heavy with symbolism, came a new law to erase the word "alien" from California's labor code.
Together, these piecemeal measures have taken on a significance greater than their individual parts — a fundamental shift in the relationship between California and its residents who live in the country illegally. The various benefits, rights and protections add up to something experts liken to a kind of California citizenship.
The changes have occurred with relatively little political rancor, which is all the more remarkable given the heated national debate about illegal immigration that has been inflamed by GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump.
"We've passed the Rubicon here," said Mike Madrid, a Republican strategist. "This is not an academic debate on the U.S. Senate floor about legal and illegal and how high you want to build the wall.... [The state] doesn't have the luxury of being ideological.... The undocumented are not going anywhere."
Democratic lawmakers and immigration activists, with diminishing opposition from the GOP, continue to seek new laws and protections. These measures include cracking down on employers withholding pay from low-wage workers and expanding state-subsidized healthcare to adult immigrants without papers.
These new initiatives face obstacles, but backers say such hurdles center on the hefty price tags of the programs, not political fallout from the immigration debate.
California officials have been spurred into action in part by the lack of action in Washington to overhaul the nation's immigration system. The stall in Congress has motivated advocates to push for changes in state laws. But they acknowledge that their victories are limited without national reform.
"The reality is, despite the bills that we've done, there are up to 3 million undocumented immigrants that still live in the shadows," said Assemblyman Luis Alejo (D-Watsonville), chairman of the Latino Legislative Caucus. "Their legal status as immigrants does not change — only Congress can do that."
Karthick Ramakrishnan, a public policy professor at UC Riverside, calls what's emerging "the California package": an array of policies that touch on nearly every aspect of immigrant life, from healthcare to higher education to protection from federal immigration enforcement.
Other states have adopted components of the package; Connecticut, for example, offers in-state tuition and driver's licenses, and passed legislation known as the Trust Act to help limit deportations before California did.
But Ramakrishnan said California is unique in how comprehensive its offerings are...
Sometime back I notice Noah Rothman really going after Donald Trump on Twitter. And I like Noah. It's just, as I've said before, some journalists on the right are really invested in this campaign, to the extent that they appear like GOP operatives rather than reporters. And hey, it's not like I don't want Republicans to win. It's more like I want a conservative to win, and a lot of Republicans aren't very conservative. That's not to say that Donald Trump is, but genuinely hardcore conservatives at the grassroots are falling in love with this guy because he's the only one to give full-throated assertiveness to their positions on illegal immigration. This is the debate we've needed to have. That is, this is the debate the nation needs to be having, because we're definitely at the tipping point of preserving a lot of basic American values. And frankly, that's what's intrigued me about Donald Trump, despite the fact that he's got a long record of supporting left-wing positions. Shoot, Trump has long been boon coons with Bill and Hillary Clinton. In that sense, he's the consummate politician, jettisoning political incorrect associations when the times demand it.
Trump’s “plan” is an assault on not merely the illegal immigrants who have violated American laws, but those who have played by the existing rules to come to the United States. The proposal amounts to a declaration of war on America’s immigrant community, an attack on the foundational nature of America’s character as a melting pot for all the peoples of the world, and the inception of a police state that is incompatible with a free republican democracy.
Hyperbole isn't a strong enough word, but then, you have to read Trump's proposal.
Rothman, for one thing, argues that building a complete border wall all the way to Matamoros "is infeasible; the geography of the border simply does not allow for one unbroken wall." Okay, then build the wall where it is feasible and then beef up human security checkpoints where it's not. The main reason that Arizona and Texas have become the battlegrounds against illegal immigration in recent years is because California essentially militarized its border in the 1990s, and illegals simply moved to entry points further east. This has long been documented, and indeed, the Los Angeles Times has written about it frequently. Border walls work. If you build them, they don't come.
Rothman also complains about how much of Trump's plan, like "E-Verify," has been a staple of Republican reform proposals for like forever. The problem, of course, is that workplace eligibility regulations like this simply aren't enforced, even in red states like Texas. Indeed, sanctuary states like California actively prohibit enforcement of E-Verify regulations. Maybe Trump's plan can turn things around. Lord know there's room for improvement there. (And I don't buy the argument that rigorous enforcement alienates and thus hinders the cooperation of illegal immigrants. These criminals have no reason to cooperate with immigration enforcement to begin with. We need to get real about how we're going to follow through with enforcing policies already on the books. Local law enforcement has already abandoned any pretense of cooperation with federal authorities. As the Kathryn Steinle and Marilyn Pharis cases sadly prove just how true this is in California.)
I agree with Rothman about "birthright citizenship," however. Talk of reforming automatic citizenship for illegal alien children is mostly a sop to the nativist right, because frankly, birthright is strongly embedded in the Constitution and it'll take a constitutional amendment to change it, and that ain't happening. Better to keep illegals out of here in the first place.
And I can't comment knowledgeably on reform of the H1B visas program, and the related ins and outs of workplace-sponsored immigration programs (it's complicated, sheesh). I do know that they're abused to high heaven, and countries like China know are gaming the system like crazy. See Michelle Malkin on that, "The Big, Fat 'American Worker Recruitment First'- Lie of H-1B."
And Trump's plan sounds like a home run to me, in any case:
We graduate two times more Americans with STEM degrees each year than find STEM jobs, yet as much as two-thirds of entry-level hiring for IT jobs is accomplished through the H-1B program. More than half of H-1B visas are issued for the program's lowest allowable wage level, and more than eighty percent for its bottom two. Raising the prevailing wage paid to H-1Bs will force companies to give these coveted entry-level jobs to the existing domestic pool of unemployed native and immigrant workers in the U.S., instead of flying in cheaper workers from overseas. This will improve the number of black, Hispanic and female workers in Silicon Valley who have been passed over in favor of the H-1B program. Mark Zuckerberg’s personal Senator, Marco Rubio, has a bill to triple H-1Bs that would decimate women and minorities.
Finally, how much of Trump's plan is genuinely unworkable? Well, beyond birthright citizenship, hardly any of it at all. It's simply going to take someone's who's not afraid of the massive backlash of political correctness, and unending charges of racism. And as we've seen so far, not only is Trump unfazed by such criticism, he's also not been penalized politically for speaking out forthrightly on the crisis.
As I always say, let's see how it all shakes out. We're having another GOP debate on September 16th. Frankly, I can't wait to see how Trump does, and it should be especially interesting because Carly Fiorina's expected to be on the stage. This should be an extremely informative event, all the better because it's going to be held here in California, at the Reagan Library. CNN's putting it on too, so if Megyn Kelly's left-wing talking points weren't enough, I'm sure CNN's moderator Jake Tapper (formerly of far left-wing Salon) will pick up the pace.
In fact, two suspects have been charged with murder. One of them, Victor Martinez Ramirez, is an illegal immigrant on probation, who has been arrested four times on drug charges in the past two years.
SANTA MARIA, Calif. - A visibly frustrated Santa Maria police chief blamed a lack of federal and state policies for undocumented immigrants for a series of events that ended with a brutal attack on a local woman who died eight days later.Marilyn Pharis, 64, was asleep in her home on Santa Maria's northwest side when two men allegedly broke in with the intention of burglary, according to police chief Ralph Martin.
Police said the men used a hammer to attack Pharis, who suffered a broken neck and shattered eye sockets. Her family members told reporter Nia Wong Pharis died from a fatal coronary embolism eight days after she was admitted to the hospital.
Victor Martinez Ramirez and Jose Villagomez were both originally charged with attempted murder and burglary. After Pharis' death, the charges were increased to first degree murder for both men. Martinez was also charged with enhanced charges alleging torture and mayhem. Both men were charged with sexual assault.
Martinez is in the country illegally, and had been arrested by local police a total of six previous times, according to Chief Martin. The undocumented immigrant pleaded no contest to felony possession of a concealed dirk or dagger on July 20, and was sentenced to a 30-day county jail term beginning at the end of October.
In a news conference broadcast live on KCOY 12 Friday afternoon, Chief Martin said a factor in Pharis' death was a lack of federal and state policies for local agencies dealing with undocumented immigrants who commit serious crimes. He was also critical of reduced penalties for some crimes in California under Proposition 47, and prison realignment under AB 109.
"There is a blood trail from Washington D.C. and Sacramento to the bedroom of Marilyn Pharis," Martin said...
Folks on Twitter were comparing the excoriation of O'Malley and Sanders to the Soviet show trials of the 1930s. Actually, I wonder if they realize just how close that comparison hits home. Damn.
California officials say more than half of new drivers’ licenses issued in the state this year have gone to people who are in the country illegally.
The California Department of Motor Vehicles reported Friday it has issued roughly 397,000 licenses under a state law that allows people who are in the country illegally to apply for licenses to drive. The law went into effect in January.
That’s more than half of the total 759,000 licenses issued in the first six months of 2015.
Supporters of the law say giving licenses to people regardless of their immigration status makes the roads safer for everyone. Opponents say people who are not in the country legally should not be rewarded.
Applicants must pass driving tests and show proof of residency and identity.
That’s generally misunderstood on the Left is that the tea-party movement did not arise as an alternative to the Obama-Reid-Pelosi Democrats but as an alternative to the Bush-McConnell-Hastert Republicans, who were judged to have spent too much, warred too recklessly, and — most significant — to have been too ready to make themselves complicit in the bailouts.
What began as a bracing revolt quickly congealed into pasty dogma.
I’ve spent the past few days at FreedomFest in Las Vegas, Mark Skousen’s annual gathering of liberty-minded activists — think of it as CPAC for people who like weed and gold coins and who are maybe interested in hearing a pitch about taking up domicile in Belize. Far from a doctrinaire libertarian (or even Libertarian) affair, it draws a large number of self-described constitutional conservatives and limited-government types of all persuasions, including Republican activists and candidates.
It is also WHINO central.
You know the RINO — Republican In Name Only — but you may be less familiar with the WHINO. The WHINO is a captive of the populist Right’s master narrative, which is the tragic tale of the holy, holy base, the victory of which would be entirely assured if not for the machinations of the perfidious Establishment. Never mind the Democrats, economic realities, Putin, ISIS, the geographical facts of the U.S.-Mexico border — all would be well and all manner of things would be well if not for the behind-the-scenes plotting of Mitch McConnell, John Boehner, and their enablers, who apparently can be bribed with small numbers of cocktail weenies. The WHINO is a Republican conspiracy theorist, in whose fervid imaginings all the players — victims, villains — are Republicans.
Barack Obama? Pshaw. The real enemy is Jeb Bush.
That this is a deeply stupid view of the world should go without saying, but if you need evidence, consider that the WHINO vote has settled for the moment upon Donald Trump, a Hillary Rodham Clinton donor who supports Canadian-style single-payer health care and amnesty for as many illegal immigrants as he imagines to exist, who has 0.00 percent chance of winning a general election and who is, as if more were needed, a ridiculous buffoon.
Ask the WHINO to explain that and you will get the characteristic WHINO whine: “But what about the baaaaaaaaase!?!”
Which is to say, the WHINO loves Trump not because Trump confounds the Democrats or because he constitutes a serious threat to a Democratic victory in 2016, but because he confounds the Republicans and constitutes a serious threat to a Republican victory in 2016. The worst part of the WHINO approach is the campaign strategery. At FreedomFest, I did an interview with Matthew Boyle of Breitbart Radio, a nice enough guy but a pretty good example of the WHINO style in American politics. What about Romney? Boyle demanded. Romney, he said with absolute assurance, lost to Barack Obama because millions of conservatives stayed home, finding him insufficiently committed to their cause.
The first aspect of what is wrong with this analysis is obvious: It assumes that a “real conservative” who couldn’t beat Mitt Romney in a Republican primary dominated by “real conservatives” would have defeated Barack Obama in a national election not dominated by conservatives at all, i.e. that Romney was the weakest candidate except for all the guys who couldn’t beat him.
But the defects in this analysis do not stop there. I am not sure that the psephology actually says what the WHINOs think it does, but even if it were so, the further problem with this line of thinking is obvious: If you are a conservative, and if you believe that the way to reform American public policy is to elect conservatives, and you arrived at Election Day believing that Barack Obama and Mitt Romney were, from the conservative point of view, interchangeable commodities, then you are either a fanatic or extraordinarily ill-informed. In either case, you owe it to yourself and to your country to be a better citizen, and maybe read a book. There are all sorts of good reasons to abstain from voting, but the preposterous notion that there isn’t much difference between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney isn’t one of them.
Republicans would probably be more inclined to give an ear to campaign advice from people who had — stay with me here — a good record for winning elections. The anti-McConnell gang took its run with Matt Bevin in the primary and got beat like a pack of circus monkeys. Louis Gohmert made his run against John Boehner for the speakership, and there he sits. These were both fine projects — primary challenges and leadership challenges are positive developments that should generally be welcomed — but they were losers. On the other hand, the campaigns to elevate Ted Cruz over David Dewhurst and Marco Rubio over Charlie Crist — insurgencies that were supported by a lot of the same Establishment leaders and institutions abominated by the WHINOS — were successful. They were so successful, in fact, that Rubio and Cruz immediately became faces of the Establishment that we are informed is so despicable...
Still more.
For some reason Williamson thinks conservative attacks on the establishment are overwrought, and hence support for Donald Trump is totally fringe. This misses the key point: Trump is talking about things the GOP establishment will not. Or at least, Trump focuses on those elements in the debate that the GOP would rather avoid. Specifically, by hammering illegal immigration from the perspective illegal alien crime, Trump risks alienating Latinos. The GOP establishment doesn't want to talk about anything that's going to alienate Latinos, hence they don't want to talk about illegal immigrant crime. Conservatives, and likely independents too, aren't pleased with the establishment because they won't deal with issues on their terms. Republicans are going to deal with the issues on Democrat terms, and the Democrats will always win when you play ball constantly on defense.
It's like Rick Moran pointed out yesterday: Donald Trump would be foolish to stop talking about illegal immigration, simply because that's what's igniting his prairie fire. Unfortunately for establishment Republicans, the longer they ignore the visceral concerns of the "base" on illegal immigration, the more they'll be working to help the Democrats in 2016.
At the video is far left-wing nut job Steve Gallardo, a member of the Board of Supervisors for Maricopa County. He's pretty angry about this, a fever swamp leftist troll, in fact.
Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton and several City Council members are denouncing Donald Trump's Arizona campaign visit, with some members arguing the event shouldn't be held at the Phoenix Convention Center.
Stanton and Councilmembers Michael Nowakowski, Daniel Valenzuela and Kate Gallego, all Democrats, were the first to speak publicly on Trump's planned speech.
They said they don't agree with the Republican presidential candidate's views and think his remarks on illegal immigrants have been "ignorant," "racially inflammatory" and "disgusting."
But Stanton said the city will not interfere with plans for the Trump event to be held at the taxpayer-funded Phoenix Convention Center.
Trump, who has been criticized for calling some undocumented immigrants rapists and criminals, is set to speak on immigration at 2 p.m. Saturday at the Convention Center's North Ballroom. Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio also is slated to speak.
The event was originally scheduled for the Arizona Biltmore, but the location shifted to the downtown Phoenix venue to accommodate the thousands who are expected to attend, Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks said.
In a statement released this week, Valenzuela said the event should be held elsewhere.
"Mr. Trump certainly has a First Amendment right to bluster as much as he wants, and even to pander to our worst instincts in a sad attempt to win votes at the expense of hard-working, honorable, law-abiding Latinos," Valenzuela said.
"However, we should draw the line at allowing him to use the Phoenix Convention Center — a public building funded by all of our taxpayers' dollars — to stage his hate-filled circus."
Gallego also disapproved of Trump's visit, suggesting unhappy residents protest the event.
"It is my hope and prayer that Phoenicians join me in exercising our First Amendment rights to let Mr. Trump know that the residents of Phoenix find his views repugnant," she said in a statement Thursday. "Just because the lawyers say we can't turn him away doesn't mean he's welcome."
Stanton, also in a released statement, said, "Mr. Trump has a right under the First Amendment to make absurd and embarrassing statements, and the city of Phoenix will not attempt to censor political speech based on content.
"The Convention Center is a public facility and open to everyone willing to pay for it — including Mr. Trump."
Councilman Bill Gates, a Republican, said Trump's views "do not reflect the majority of Arizonans and the majority of Arizona Republicans." He agreed with Stanton, saying the city does not prohibit any use of the center because of political ideology.
Added Nowakowski in a separate statement: "I support our First Amendment right to free speech and as a city, we cannot discriminate based on content or person ... Phoenix will not be tarnished by this event."
Councilwoman Thelda Williams agreed that Phoenix can't block Trump from speaking at the convention center.
"I think all the presidential candidates are welcome to come say their piece so people have an opportunity to hear what they have to say and make up their own minds," she said.
Another case where anti-speech leftists just can't stand the First Amendment, and funny how there's nothing they can do about it. The f-king losers.
LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- Donald Trump isn't backing down from his comments about Mexican immigrants bringing crime with them when they enter into the United States illegally.
The Republican presidential hopeful addressed critics at a Friday news conference in Beverly Hills, saying U.S. leaders are not doing enough and letting in illegal immigrants who shoot and kill U.S. citizens.
"We're housing people from all over the world that other countries don't want. They're sending criminals to us and we're putting those criminals in jails, often times after they've hurt somebody or killed somebody," Trump said
He noted that he respects the country of Mexico and pointed to his "great relationships" with Mexican people, including his employees.
"I will win the Hispanic vote. I'm going to get people jobs. Nobody else is going to," Trump said.
Families who lost loved ones at the hands of undocumented immigrants joined Trump at the news conference.
Jamiel Shaw, Sr., whose son was shot to death in 2008 by an undocumented immigrant who had been released from a Los Angeles County jail hours before the murder, agreed with Trump's assessment.
"To me, he (Trump) was being nice, because I would say they're murderers. So what he said was going easy," Shaw, Sr. said.
Meanwhile, about 60 protesters marched outside of Luxe Sunset Boulevard Hotel, where Trump is expected to appear at an event.
Protesters carried signs reading, "Dump Trump," and held Trump look-alike pinatas.
"He better stop talking bad about my people, my brothers and sisters, the working community, because we're not criminals," Hawthorne resident Martha Munoz said.
San Francisco Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi has deflected blame in the release of a Mexican national now facing murder charges in the Pier 14 slaying by demanding to know why federal authorities returned him to San Francisco to face a 20-year-old marijuana charge in the first place.
The answer, it turns out, is that the Sheriff’s Department asked federal officials to do so.
Mirkarimi’s agency requested custody of Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez as he was completing a 46-month stint in federal prison in March in San Bernardino County, according to a Sheriff’s Department letter obtained by The Chronicle. Lopez-Sanchez had been deported five times to Mexico and had been imprisoned for illegally re-entering the U.S.
The federal Bureau of Prisons alerted the Sheriff’s Department in March that Lopez-Sanchez was going to be released. Mirkarimi’s agency, realizing that Lopez-Sanchez was wanted on a $5,000 bench warrant related to a 1995 marijuana possession-for-sale case, asked prison officials March 23 to hold him and to notify San Francisco authorities “when the subject is ready for our pick-up.”
“Also, please notify us if the hold cannot be placed or the named subject is released to another jurisdiction prior to our receipt,” said the letter, signed by Vic Gaerlan of the sheriff’s warrant bureau.
Lopez-Sanchez arrived in San Francisco on March 26, and the marijuana case against him was discharged the following day. He was returned to jail, however.
Prisoner in legal limbo
For the next three weeks, sources with knowledge of the matter told The Chronicle, sheriff’s deputies sought clarification from the department’s legal division on whether to hold Lopez-Sanchez so Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials could pick him up for possible deportation. ICE had requested that the city detain Lopez-Sanchez.
In the end, the legal division told deputies they had no basis to hold Lopez-Sanchez, and he was released April 15. He was arrested last week in the July 1 shooting death of 32-year-old Kathryn Steinle on San Francisco’s waterfront, and has pleaded not guilty to murder charges.
Mirkarimi’s office did not immediately comment on the letter. It initially scheduled a news conference for Thursday to “set the record straight” on Lopez-Sanchez’s release but called it off late Wednesday “out of respect for Kate Steinle’s funeral services.”
In an interview Tuesday on KQED radio, the sheriff questioned why Lopez-Sanchez had been sent to the city.
“We’re trying to understand why ICE returned Sanchez to San Francisco on a 20-year-old marijuana possession charge in a city that really doesn’t even prosecute marijuana possession … and knowing that he had been deported and illegally entered the country,” the sheriff said.
Freya Horne, legal counsel for the Sheriff’s Department, told The Chronicle on Tuesday that her office had dispatched a private transportation outfit to pick up Lopez-Sanchez.
“It seems kind of amazing that after all that time, he was brought back here for that purpose,” Horne said.
Joseph Russoniello, former U.S. attorney in San Francisco, said the city’s request to take custody of such an offender was “very unusual.” He said sheriff’s officials could have checked with local prosecutors about the case and opted not to intervene.
“They had the capability to examine the status of the file and determine whether or not to pursue the matter or move to cancel or withdraw the warrant,” he said.
The Sheriff’s Department letter came to light on the same day that San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee attacked Mirkarimi, saying his decision to cut off even basic communication with federal immigration officials led to Lopez-Sanchez’s release.
Mirkarimi has said a 2013 city law designed to protect people without immigration status — a law signed by Lee — mandated the April release after the local charges against him were dropped.
But the mayor said the sheriff’s office could have satisfied both city and state law by simply picking up the phone and asking immigration agents to come over and pick up Lopez-Sanchez before the “serious, repeat” felon was set loose.
“I’ve sent that message over to the Sheriff’s Department regarding communications with the federal authorities,” Lee said at a news conference. “Do we need to educate somebody on how to pick up the phone?”
Lee said Mirkarimi “needs to read the entire ordinance” the mayor signed in 2013. The law prohibits most inmates suspected of being in the country illegally from being held for ICE after their scheduled jail release. The 48-hour holds are known as detainers.
If Barack Obama obeyed the law and stopped these illegal aliens from re-entering the country time after time, these two innocent women would still be alive. Fact.
This is getting pathetic. This President's policies are literally killing innocent people. You must do something about this!
Tell Congress to STOP Obama from releasing illegal alien felons and force the administration to restart deportations!
Hey, more power to Donald Trump. Americans are noticing and they're thankful for the honest talk on the corrupt bipartisan failure to secure this nation's borders.
The head of the Republican National Committee, responding to demands from increasingly worried party leaders, spent nearly an hour Wednesday on the phone with Donald Trump, urging the presidential candidate to tone down his inflammatory comments about immigration that have infuriated a key election constituency.
The call from Chairman Reince Priebus, described by donors and consultants briefed on the conversation and confirmed by the RNC, underscores the extent to which Trump has gone from an embarrassment to a cause for serious alarm among top Republicans in Washington and nationwide.
But there is little they can do about the mogul and reality-television star, who draws sustenance from controversy and attention. And some fear that, with assistance from Democrats, Trump could become the face of the GOP...
I had Fox News on all afternoon. Charles Krauthammer didn't even want to give Trump the time of day, especially after Laura Ingraham upbraided Charles Lane, also on the panel, for distorting Trump's comments while spewing typical leftist pro-illegal alien PC. Establishment types just don't want to deal with this issue. Ingraham of course has been on top of it a long time and was validated last year with Dave Brat's secure-the-borders victory in Virginia's 7th Congressional District (after beating Majority Leader Eric Cantor in the primary). She'd championed Brat throughout the campaign.
Then Hannity's show opened with three families who've lost loved ones to illegals. It's a visceral issue for Americans. It remains to be seen if it's not the Democrats who've got more to worry about than the GOP.
On Monday, illegal alien Francisco Lopez-Sanchez, a 45-year-old repeat drug offender who had been deported five times, was charged with killing Kathryn Steinle, 32, at Pier 14 in the "sanctuary city" of San Francisco. The details surrounding this case are a testament to the multi-layered bankruptcy of progressive ideology.
We begin with the contemptible notion of a sanctuary city itself. Despite the passage of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Responsibility Act of 1996 requiring cities to cooperate with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE), there are literally hundreds of cities in the nation that provide safe haven for illegal aliens in open defiance of federal law. Yet because that law conflicts with progressive sensibilities, not a single lawsuit has ever been filed by the federal government against a sanctuary city for violating it. In a revealing contrast, the Obama administration has filed suit against states such as Arizona, Alabama and South Carolina that were attempting to enforce federal immigration law. The administration claimed the states had no right to do so—despite the reality the administration itself refuses to do so.
The case of Lopez-Sanchez itself is equally illuminating. Despite his presence in America following five deportations to his native country of Mexico, ICE turned Lopez-Sanchez over to San Francisco police on March 26 because he had an outstanding drug warrant. And despite the reality he had a record of seven felony convictions, San Francisco released Lopez-Sanchez to the streets on April 15, after the district attorney declined to prosecute him for a 20-year old marijuana possession charge. In short, the feds aided and abetted the release of a serial border-buster to a sanctuary city manifestly unwilling to jail a career criminal.
No one made that reality clearer than San Francisco Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi. Mirkarimi first blamed ICE for Sanchez-Lopez’s release, insisting the agency didn’t file a formal court application to detain him. But in a later interview with CNN, his progressive instincts were revealed. The sheriff defended San Francisco’s sanctuary city policy, insisting it "makes us safer." "We’re a world-renowned city with a large immigrant population,” Mirkarimi declared. "And of that population is a population that is also here undocumented. From a law enforcement perspective, we want to build trust with that population. And our sanctuary city and other attendant laws have allowed us to do that.”
Mirkarimi’s arrogant defiance of federal law is nothing new. In a press release sent out last year, he boasted about a revision made to his department’s policy of retainment that "reduced the number of individuals released to ICE authorities by 62 percent. Only one other county in California had a policy of similar strength,” it stated.
San Francisco’s equally contemptible Mayor, Ed Lee, added ideologically-inspired insult to injury. Despite issuing a press release saying he was "deeply saddened" by the "tragic and senseless death,” of Steinle and that his "thoughts and prayers” were with her family, he also endorsed his city’s sanctuary policy. "Let me be clear: [the policy] protects residents regardless of immigration status and is not intended to protect repeat, serious and violent felons," he said. Lee further emphasized his commitment to "civil liberties" and "public safety” to explain his 2013 decision to "veto any legislation” undermining the San Francisco Sheriff's Department's ability to determined whether or not to honor ICE-issued "detainers" on a case-by-case basis.
As for ICE itself, their criticism of San Francisco rings exceedingly hollow. "We're not asking local law enforcement to do our job,'' ICE spokeswoman Gillian Christensen said in a statement. "All we're asking is that they notify us when a serious foreign national criminal offender is being released to the street so we can arrange to take custody.’’
Utter sophistry, belied by two inconvenient realities. ICE had Lopez-Sanchez in custody before turning him over to San Francisco, and by any reasonable measure his record of five deportations should have made his continued retention a no-brainer.
Yet even more to the point, ICE itself has released tens of thousands of criminal immigrants onto America’s streets over the past two years. In FY2013, 36,007 criminal aliens were released, followed by another 30,558 criminal aliens in FY2014. ICE cited both overcrowding and the Supreme Court case Zadvydas v. Davis as their rationale for doing so. In that case the Court ruled the doctrine of plenary power does not allow the federal government to detain an immigrant under a deportation order indefinitely if no other country will accept him. As a result of that decision, 134,000 aliens were released into the general population in only three years. Moreover, ICE does not keep track of those they release--including the 618 sex offenders given their freedom in the 2013 mass release.
In an April House Judiciary Committee hearing, Rep. Lamar Smith challenged ICE Director Sarah Saldaña regarding those releases, honing in on that Court case. “One-quarter of these 30,000 criminal aliens had been convicted of level one crimes, such as murder, rape, and sexual abuse of a minor,” Smith revealed. “Of those 30,000, only 8 percent were Zadvydas cases.” When Saldaña insisted that half of those released in 2014 were the result of the Zadvydas ruling, Smith noted the Obama administration was nonetheless releasing criminal aliens not affected by that ruling. “Why are you doing this to the American people?” Smith asked. “You know their recidivism rate is high. You know these individuals are going to be convicted of other crimes. Why are you doing the this to the American people?”
The answer is as simple as it is distressing: because the Obama administration has embraced the American left’s determination to ignore any law it doesn’t like, using a policy of selective law enforcement as a club to do so. Just as it is with sanctuary cities, Obama’s executive actions attempting to grant amnesty to as many illegals as possible, or the administration’s continuing policy of allowing hundreds of thousands of illegals to surge over the nation's border—followed by their calculated dispersion throughout the nation—the extortionist message is clear: Americans will be force-fed so-called comprehensive immigration reform, whether they like it or not...
The random, heartless murder of a young tourist on San Francisco’s Pier 14 by a five-time illegal alien deportee who benefited from the “progressive” city’s sanctuary policy has law-abiding Americans, law enforcement officials and political opportunists of all stripes up in arms.
But for decades, feckless government leaders ignored the pleas of families who suffered the bloody consequences of open borders.
For every Kate Steinle who died at the hands of an illegal alien sanctuary beneficiary, there is a Tony, Michael and Matthew Bologna in San Francisco.
A Jamiel Shaw (age 17) or Xinran Ji (age 24) in Los Angeles.
A Martin Kudlis (age 3) in Denver.
An Iofemi Hightower, Dashon Harvey, Terrance Aeriel, or Natasha Aeriel in Newark.
A Zina Linnik (age 12) in Tacoma.
A Vanessa Pham (age 19) in Fairfax County, Va.
As I’ve reported time and again, liberal “sanctuary” programs in these metropolitan areas have protected, harbored and enabled criminal illegal aliens who disappeared into the deportation abyss. Both Democrats and Republicans, goaded by Big Government and Big Business interests, collaborated to turn America into a collective sanctuary nation. Non-enforcement is the rule, deportation evasion is the game, and the country is a safe haven — for law-breakers from around the world.
Yet, even as born-again tough-on-borders grandstanders now race in front of cameras to condemn these dangerous policies, churches across the country are brazenly thumbing their noses at our immigration laws. And political phonies are doing nothing to stop them...
CNN's also had non-stop coverage of the story, and I haven't even seen the evening news broadcasts yet. And watch Donald Trump's poll numbers. Leftists will be apoplectic.
