Governor Jerry Brown Turned California into a Sanctuary State – Gavin Newsom Made it Worse

The deranged San Diego Board of Supervisors just voted 3-1 to make San Diego County a super duper extra sanctuary county (all but Supervisor Jim Desmond voted for extra sanctuary status).

As the Globe reported earlier this month, California is already a sanctuary state thanks to Assembly and Senate Democrats and former Gov. Jerry Brown who signed Senate Bill 54 by then-Senate President pro Tem Kevin de León (D-Los Angeles) in 2017 turning California into a sanctuary state. SB 54 prohibits local police departments and sheriffs’ deputies from assisting Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and enforcing federal immigration laws.

But now, with Donald Trump about to move back into the White House for term number two, former Governor Jerry Brown “attempted to distance himself from the extreme sanctuary policies in the state despite being the one who initially set them in motion,” the Blaze reported in “Ex-governor distances himself from California’s sanctuary policies he set in motion.”

“During a Thursday interview with KXTV, Brown claimed policies prohibiting local law enforcement agencies from cooperating with federal immigration officers have gone too far.”

Jerry and the state’s Democrats own this policy. They pushed for it, behaving like insolent brats, thinking they were collectively thumbing their noses at Trump in 2017.

As I reported in 2017, Democrats and Governor Brown knew what they were ushering in:

SB 54 still does not address all criminal illegal aliens, whether they are “violent” or “serious” criminals. Apparently, de León is resisting including human traffickers, child abusers, kidnappers, and hostage takers in his bill. De León instead continues to falsely claim its “maids, laborers, baby sitters and landscapers” who are being targeted in ICE sweeps… Except that ICE does not do sweeps–ICE agents work in jails targeting only criminal illegal aliens. De León’s bill would force immigration officials to reinstitute sweeps since they would no longer be allowed in jails and prisons, where the criminals are located. Despite the wave of refugees allowed in the United States from Syria and Iraq under the Obama administration, California Democrats continue to deny national security issues in favor of political opportunism.

At the time SB 54 was being heard in legislative committees in 2017, California already was home to the largest illegal alien population in the country, with 35 sanctuary cities, which already had sanctuary policies to prohibit police from cooperating with immigration authorities.

SB 54 made the entire state a sanctuary state, harboring criminal illegal aliens. “The tough talk is all rhetoric coming out of Washington,” Sen. de León said at the time. “We are going to be punished or they will strike back at us? We are the great state of California. We don’t grovel or put our hand out so we can get a little budget money so we can buy a police car.”

Here’s what SB 54 does:

“Prohibits law enforcement agencies (including school police and security departments) from using resources to investigate, interrogate, detain, detect, or arrest people for immigration enforcement purposes. Restrictions include:

a) Inquiring into an individual’s immigration status.

b) Detaining a person based on a hold request from ICE.

c) Arresting a person based on a civil immigration warrant.

d) Participating in 287(g) agreements or any program that deputizes police as

immigration agents.

e) Participating in border patrol activities, including warrantless searches.

f) Using ICE agents as interpreters.”

Jerry Brown knew all of this when he signed the bill into law.

President Donald Trump has once again vowed to complete the border wall and deport criminal illegal aliens. The president and Congress can also withhold federal funding from California if the state continues to refuse to cooperate with immigration officials.

Immediately after the November election, Gov. Gavin Newsom said he would “Trump-proof” the state against President-elect Donald Trump’s anticipated policies, but this stunt is getting meh reviews.

Newsom called an unnecessary special session of the Legislature to grab another $25 million that the state doesn’t have so Attorney General Rob Bonta can spend more time and taxpayer money to litigate and “defend” California’s problematic policies, regulations and laws against the Trump administration.

“The freedoms we hold dear in California are under attack — and we won’t sit idle,” Newsom said in a statement. “We are prepared to fight in the courts.”

It’s easy to “fight in the courts” when spending taxpayer funds and headlines.

But Newsom isn’t reading the room, and certainly not the voters. Even in 2017, a University of California, Berkeley study of more than 1,000 Californians found 74 percent oppose sanctuary city policies, legislative Democrats continue to push SB 54, despite that the UC Berkeley study results included 73 percent of Democrats and 65 percent of Hispanics. “We found very broad-based opposition to the idea of sanctuary cities,” said IGS Director Jack Citrin, a professor of political science at UC Berkeley who has studied immigration for years. “Californians want their local officials to abide by the requests of federal authorities.”

Today that number would be even higher with the Biden Administration letting 8-10 millions of illegal aliens into the country, including violent gangs and drug cartels. Mass illegal immigration needs mass deportations.

Yet California’s problematic policies include Newsom threatening police with the loss of their pensions should they assist immigration agents with deportations of criminal illegal aliens.

Expect lawsuits against Newsom and Bonta from police unions.

“He [Brown] further claimed that Democrats are now advocating for stronger borders and a lawful process to allow in foreign nationals,” the Blaze reported, and “Brown rejected the narrative that California is defying federal immigration laws.”

Despite claims that SB 54 isn’t to blame for all of California’s sanctuary policies, former Governor Jerry Brown and his Lt. Governor, now Governor Gavin Newsom opened the door to this disaster – and made it worse.