Make California Safe Again: California’s Sanctuary State Law Puts Everyone in Danger

California Democrats would rather fight against Donald Trump than concern themselves with the safety and security of the state’s residents. So how did California become a sanctuary state?

In 2017, opportunistic California Democrats authored bills to counter the immigration executive orders to protect Americans, of President Donald J. Trump – in violation of Trump’s constitutional authority.

In 2017, then-Senate President Pro Tem De León, D-Los Angeles, the author of Senate Bill 54, claimed that “immigrants are valuable and essential members of the California community” and all attempts to enforce immigration laws create fear of the police among “immigrant community members” who fear “approaching police when they are victims of, and witnesses to, crimes.”

According to De León:

The purpose of this bill is to protect the safety and well-being of all Californians by ensuring that state and local resources are not used to fuel mass deportations, separate families, and ultimately hurt California’s economy.

SB 54 limits state and local law enforcement agencies involvement in immigration enforcement and ensures that eligible individuals are able to seek services from and engage with state agencies without regard to their immigration status. It also turned California into a sanctuary state.

At the time waves of refugees were still coming to the United States from Syria and Iraq under the Obama administration. California Democrats completely denied there could be national security issues, in favor of political opportunism once Trump took office.

California was then and still is home to the largest illegal-alien population in the country, initially with 35 sanctuary cities, morphing into the full state as a sanctuary, courtesy of California’s Democrat lawmakers.

President-elect Trump vowed to build a border wall in his first term, and deport immigrants with a criminal record, which he estimated at the time to be two-three million. Today that number could be 10 times larger.

Several bills authored by Senate Democrats in the California State Legislature were meant to be a thumb in the eye of President Donald J. Trump over immigration laws.

SB 6 by Democrat Sen. Ben Hueso, titled “Due Process for All,” signed into law by Gov. Jerry Brown, created a state program to fund legal representation for illegal aliens facing deportation. AB 3 proposed by then-Assemblyman Rob Bonta, would have created taxpayer-funded  training for defense attorneys and public defenders on immigration law for illegal aliens. AB 3 did not pass.

The third bill, SB 54 by Sen. Pres. Pro Tem Kevin de León, signed into law by Gov. Jerry Brown, now restricts local police and sheriffs from working with federal immigration enforcers. SB 54 prohibits law enforcement from responding to federal requests for notification when a jail houses someone who might be the subject of an immigration enforcement action. Whether the immigrants are here legally or not, and whether they have committed crimes in the United States, this bill effectively prohibits communications between local law enforcement and federal authorities.

SB 54 specifically prohibits almost all cooperation and communication with federal immigration authorities.

Sen. Pres. Pro Tem Kevin de León and California Democrats essentially block state and local resources from being used for illegal alien/immigration enforcement.

According to Hans von Spakovsky, Senior Legal Fellow at the Heritage Foundation, (also from 2017), “While there are many areas over which the states and the federal government share responsibility, immigration is not one of them.”

He continues:

“there are a long series of decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court upholding the authority of prior presidents under this provision and severely limiting the ability of the courts to review the president’s decision.”

“Unfortunately, at the urging of certain states, the courts have in large part ignored the Constitution, federal law, and prior precedents. They are instead substituting their judgment for that of the president, and enjoining the president’s executive order by implementing a temporary halt to entry from certain terrorist safe havens.”

“Sanctuary cities are trying to prevent federal officials from finding out about criminal alien murderers, rapists, and other violent criminals that these cities would apparently rather release than have picked up and deported so they cannot further victimize Americans.”

But they do it anyway. However, the federal government can withhold federal grants and funds to cities/states that withhold information.

“Quite appropriately, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that he will not award any discretionary federal grants from the Justice Department to cities that violate §1373,” von Spakovsky said. “Seattle has filed suit, claiming that the federal government has no right to cut off its access to discretionary funding. The city also makes the meritless claims that its policy does not violate federal immigration law.”

“8 U.S.C. §1373 prohibits states and local jurisdictions from preventing their law enforcement officials from exchanging information with federal officials on the citizenship status of individuals they have arrested or detained. The Supreme Court upheld this provision in 2012 in Arizona v. United States.”

Proponents of SB 54 claimed that Trump’s executive order was just more racial profiling, and California’s long-standing history of welcoming immigrants overrides illegal immigration enforcement – conflating legal immigrants and illegal aliens.

Democrats ignored concerns about illegal alien dangerous felons being released back into communities to cause more heinous crimes, similar to what happened to Kate Steinle, who was murdered by a five-time deported criminal illegal alien.

Would local law enforcement be able to assist ICE only in cases of criminal illegal aliens?

“It’s not necessary,” de León said. “There is nothing stopping ICE from getting the individual.”

Committee Chairwoman Sen. Nancy Skinner (D-Berkeley)  said “the state of California will not be compliant with authoritarian policies.”

From the Bill:

SB-54 would, among other things, prohibit state and local law enforcement agencies and school police and security departments from using resources to investigate, detain, detect, report, or arrest persons for immigration enforcement purposes, or to investigate, enforce, or assist in the investigation or enforcement of any federal program requiring registration of individuals on the basis of race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, or national or ethnic origin, as specified. The bill would require state agencies to review their confidentiality policies and identify any changes necessary to ensure that information collected from individuals is limited to that necessary to perform agency duties and is not used or disclosed for any other purpose, as specified. The bill would require public schools, hospitals, and courthouses to establish and make public policies that limit immigration enforcement on their premises and would require the Attorney General, in consultation with appropriate stakeholders, to publish model policies for use by those entities for those purposes.

SB 54 passed the California Legislature entirely along party lines, Gov. Jerry Brown signed it into law, and turned California into a sanctuary state.

It’s time to Make California Safe Again.