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AG Sessions Sues California for Violating Federal Immigration Law – Finally!
Like most of you, I’ve been appalled at the state of California’s not only flouting, but condemning federal immigration law. I’m happy to say that Jeff Sessions is loaded for bear, and he is suing that state for their outrageous behavior and rejection of the rule of law. When I researched the topic to get up to date, the actions of the state of California were even more egregious than I had imagined.
California, along with other states, believes that protecting its illegal immigrants is more important than protecting its legitimate citizens:
There are about 300 state and local governments with laws, rules or policies that impede federal efforts to enforce immigration laws. But what exactly does that mean to the average American citizen? Since 2014, about 10,000 criminal aliens who were released because of sanctuary policies were arrested – again – for new crimes. That’s 10,000 preventable crimes. Sanctuary policies make us all less safe.
California has been especially aggressive about blocking federal efforts with three laws: the state prohibits private employers from aiding federal immigration officials by threatening fines; it prevents local agencies from informing federal authorities of release dates of illegal aliens; and it establishes a state-run inspection process of illegal aliens in federal detention facilities.
Most recently, AG Sessions called out Libby Schaff, the mayor of Oakland: “So here’s my message to Mayor Schaff. How dare you, how dare you needlessly endanger the lives of our law enforcement officers to promote a radical open borders agenda?” Tom Homan, acting director of ICE, has said that ICE failed to make 800 arrests that they might have executed if Mayor Schaff had not spoken out.
ICE will increase its presence in the state, and AG Sessions still hopes to cut funding to sanctuary cities that defy federal law enforcement.
In his speech to the California Peace Officers Association in San Francisco yesterday, AG Sessions reminded his audience of the three executive orders that were sent to him by the President: to back law enforcement; to reduce crime in America; and to dismantle transnational criminal gangs. AG Sessions concluded his remarks with the following:
California is using every power it has — and some it doesn’t — to frustrate federal law enforcement. So you can be sure I’m going to use every power I have to stop them.
We are going to fight these irrational, unfair, and unconstitutional policies that have been imposed on you and our federal officers. We are fighting to make your jobs safer and to help you reduce crime in America. We are fighting to have a lawful system of immigration that serves Americans. And we intend to win.
Of course, Governor Jerry Brown is furious at Sessions: “This is basically going to war against the state of California,” Brown said. “This is pure red meat for the base … the Trump administration is full of liars.”
I think the governor might finally realize that the federal government is serious about stopping the sanctuary city movement.
My questions are many: will the federal courts once again rule against the federal government as they did in Arizona? Will the federal government be allowed to withhold state funds as a penalty for breaking federal law? Will there be consequences for individuals who violate federal law in this manner?
Who’s running this country anyway?
Published in Law
The parasite eating it’s host or whatever. It has to make the country better, not worse. We need a ton of immigrants but they have to assimilate, not the other way around. No social problems. The disbursed GDP per capita has to go up from it, not down. Then there is the rule of law. Google: Mises + nationalism.
I agree, Jim. I don’t think he’s quite as confident about his position anymore, though.
It is hard to say if someone in Calif played with the numbers, in a deliberate manner, because the situation is tricky.
I am not implying that numbers were never wrong. (I would say that with regards to immigration, the numbers are usually wrong.) Two things happened during the 1980’s that made counting the illegal population quite tricky. One was that around 1985, (I think it was) there was a general amnesty, involving millions of people. So overnight, those people were suddenly no longer illegal.
Secondly, although the adults inside a household might all have the “illegal” designation, any children born on this side of the border would be citizens. Sometimes those tallying up the figures would forget this fact. And it is a hard “fact” to even know. Six kids live in a household with four adults. How would you determine which are there legally due to being born in the USA, and which were born south of the border? It is not like the adults in such a household always cooperate with the Census Bureau.
@caroljoy, very good points. Thanks for elaborating.
I’ve been thinking about some of your comments about whether it is appropriate/legal/constitutional for the federal government to compel states to assist in carrying out immigration law. I don’t know the legal answer, but I think there are a number of ways to approach this issue. Let’s assume technically they can’t be compelled, which I know as @hoyacon has said is up for debate. One solution is to have an ICE officer in every city and county law enforcement department; he would be part of the federal govt., but they’d just need to give him or her a desk. It wouldn’t even need to be a full-fledged officer, but only someone who can pick up the darn phone and call ICE. Another is to ask them to partner somehow; the stupidity of all of this debate is that it is in their best interests to cooperate, whether they want to or not! First, I think this gray area to compel needs to be cleared up (and I think they should assist); a ruling needs to happen so we can move forward. Every day that goes by without action is another day of endangering the people, never mind law enforcement itself.
I’ve noticed that, in the Western Hemisphere at least, the citizens of countries that started out as colonies of the British Empire generally have more respect for the concept the rule of law than do ones in former Spanish Colonies. I don’t mean to claim anything by this, just to wonder that if this is true, then why? I’m also open to being convinced otherwise.
There is:
https://www.sfgate.com/expensive-san-francisco/article/U-Haul-San-Francisco-Bay-Area-prices-shortage-12617855.php
In Mexico, the inequalities between social classes have been oppressive for centuries. There has been only the super rich and the dirt poor. (Perhaps that changed in the 1980’s, when Mexico developed an oil economy.) Around 2005, in was noticed that in Mexico, one fourth of the economy was due to tourism, one fourth to drugs, one fourth to the oil economy, and the rest to miscellaneous like farm products, manufactured goods etc.
So if a nation is relying on its criminal cartels for one fourth of its economy, where would there be any rule of law in any of that?
It appears that the primary thrust of the DOJ complaint is that new California state laws prohibit employers and local officials from complying with a federal ICE request unless ICE obtains a court order (warrant). So, the feds are suing not to require cooperation, but to prevent the state from prohibiting cooperation.
That’s true, but even if those prohibitions are rejected by the courts, what happens if the local or state authorities still don’t do anything? We’re back to the question of whether the feds can compel them, and how they would do that. If there is no accountability, we’re back to square one, I think. That’s why the feds wanted to withhold money; whether that can be done is still unclear. So frustrating!
This is precisely why I’ve turned anti-immigration in the last few years. As a young man I was persuaded by the economic arguments in favor of immigration. They still make sense to me, but around 30 it finally clicked that, human nature being what it is, the welfare state would undermine most of the theoretical economic benefits of immigration. I hadn’t yet decide immigration was bad, but it definitely wasn’t the clear win that the Chamber of Commerce would have us believe. Then I straddled the fence for a decade, unsure of the right position. My first post on Ricochet in 2012 outlined my opinions and concerns, and asked the members to help me better understand the issue. No clear answers came from that dialog, but it wouldn’t be long before my mind was made up.
A couple years later diversity stopped being a recommendation or a goal, and started being a club with which the race hustlers and their political cronies beat everyday Americans about the head. Far from uniting us, the insistence that we need not only tolerate and respect one another, but celebrate people for their skin pigmentation and behavioral differences fosters resentment. Resentment is felt not just by those commanded to celebrate, but also from the celebrated who feel they aren’t celebrated enough. Not only are immigrants no longer encouraged to assimilate to American culture, if we continue down this road much longer, there will be no American culture to assimilate to.
I’m still not opposed to immigration in theory, but admitting more immigrants in this social climate is foolhardy. Until something changes dramatically, I say let’s keep everybody out – including the Norwegians.
Did the social inequities lead to the different views of the rule of law? Did the Spanish colonial upper classes even respect the concept of the rule of law themselves? Is the rise of the cartels a symptom of these differences? Or was it, and is it, simply a respect for the rule of power?
Yes, that is how I recall the AZ case. too, at least the part the court struck down as preempted by federal power.
The Magna Carta. Even if in practice the English monarch exercised near absolute power and was immune to legal consequences for his actions, the English knew they were being screwed centuries before anybody else did. They had it in writing.
Yes, I think parts were left in place, but the key affirmative items the AZ laws placed on local law enforcement specifically to facilitate federal policies without more (like their asking) in large part were struck down, as I recall.
Yes, they can withhold money, but the courts have placed limits on it. For example, if a state doesn’t meet federal highway standards the feds can withhold highway funding. They can’t withhold all of it, but highways are expensive and a lot of money changes hands, so the states have a lot of incentive to comply. That’s how the feds essentially mandated the 55 MPH speed limit and 21 year old legal drinking age – although the drinking age issue probably wouldn’t pass muster with SCOTUS today.
In the case of sanctuary cities and states, conventional wisdom is that withholding federal funding for law enforcement would be justified. Unfortunately, there’s not very much money at risk, so many jurisdictions can just live without it. There might be some other monies at risk over this issue, but the heavy hitters like welfare, education, highways, and healthcare would be off limits. This is great news for federalism, but it’s not very helpful when it comes to immigration.
Personally, I would like the feds to estimate the amount of welfare, education, and healthcare funds spent on illegals and withhold that. People who know much more about law than I do have said it wouldn’t stand, but I’d try it if I were in the White House.
Hopefully it isn’t the federal government, at least not completely. We’re supposed to have a system of shared sovereignty.
I frankly don’t believe Sessions’ claim to be concerned that the California action is unconstitutional. If he cared about the Constitution, he would be opposed to civil assets forfeiture. Instead, he is one of the biggest proponents.
So until he really starts supporting the Constitution, I am going to assume that he is just playing his favorite game: Good Cop Bad Cop, with him playing his favorite role of Bad Cop.
It’s a tell that he said, “How dare you, how dare you needlessly endanger the lives of our law enforcement officers to promote a radical open borders agenda?”
He should be as concerned about the danger of illegal immigration to our citizens as well as to our law enforcement officers. I don’t think California should flout our immigration laws to the endangerment of our entire country, but I’d prefer a more federalist solution that confined the consequences of its defiance to California.
And by the way, one of the reasons I was opposed to Bill Clinton’s Crime Bill was that it was a means of nationalizing all our police forces. Local police should be in a mode of wary and antagonistic cooperation with the feds. They should not be in a position where they have to take orders from the feds or have their federal funds cut off.
You can’t have federal aid without federal control. Conservatives used to say that because they were wary of federal control.
The amount of poverty in Mexico doesn’t make sense to me. They have abundant natural resources, thriving tourism, and very productive agriculture businesses. As of 2013:
I’ll bet there’s as much poverty in the United States as there is in Mexico. We also give them foreign aid, as much $320 million through various programs. And a lot American businesses have operations in Mexico, generating more money for the country.
And the newest source of wealth for Mexico are people retiring there, bringing their pensions and Social Security.
At what point do we say, “You need to take care of your own poor people, just as we take care of ours.”
They certainly have enough money to do that.
Yes!
This is reality.
No one ever talks about this, but I think part of the problem is Mexico has a really lousy constitution. IMO, we need to be a lot more judgmental about how poorly that country is run.
They have a crappy country that is unfair to their marginal worker and it’s our problem, no matter what. That’s what so many people think. It’s crazy.
And this is Kamala Harris, recently California’s Attorney General, currently Californa’s junior U.S. Senator (given the California Democrat Party’s non-endorsement of Dianne Feinstein, not to mention the fact that Feinstein is 84, likely to soon be California’s senior senator.) She, as the senatorial cliché goes, sees the President of the United States when she looks in the mirror.
Kamala Harris is so damn dumb it’s unbelievable.
Well, to be fair, Sessions speech was for the Cal. Peace Officers Standards and Training, the chief state law enforcement group. I didn’t hear his entire speech, so he may very well have expressed his concerns for the people, too. I agree that governance is shared; what’s tricky, because the federal government has gotten so involved in actions that they shouldn’t be doing that the line has become unclear. Today I heard that Colorado refused to release an illegal who’d committed hit-and-run; the driver of the other car was burned to death in his car. It appears the illegal has had other violations. And Colorado doesn’t want to release the man to ICE. Since there are more than 300 entities that are called “sanctuary,” the problem is much bigger than CA. And you are also correct, @thereticulator, that the feds tend to overstep. What a mess.
Good grief. Let’s hope not. The woman scares the daylights out of me.
I had a friend from Mexico that worked in a restaurant. He was here legally but he really wanted to live back there. The problem is his standard of living is just way better here. The difference between his salary and American purchasing power was that issue, not just the top line or getting a job. His sister married a guy in the cartel. He was pretty freaked out about it.
First with the above quote, let me say, whenever the left accuses the right of something shameful…divisiveness, racism, lack of caring, playing politics, misogynism…it is exactly that which they, the left, are themselves guilty.
“Dreamers”??? These were criminals. Let me say right here. If an American citizen was walking down a block in his own neighborhood and saw a police van pull up to raid his neighbor’s house and that citizen began to yell and warn his neighbor of the impending raid, he would be arrested. If the police had a DUI check point and a citizen got out of his car a block ahead to warn upcoming cars, he would be arrested. This Mayor obstructed justice. She was informed of the raid as a courtesy and as a protection for any local police who might be working undercover. What she did was outrageous and illegal. Kamala Harris isn’t even addressing the actual situation that occurred. This had nothing to do with so called “dreamers”.
Yes, and Harris used to be Attorney General of California. I think Jeff Sessions is mistaken on some issues, but that he is a man of the law. Harris has demonstrated that she is lawless. Obama is kind of lazy. Harris is not.