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“Sessions, Sessions, go away
No immigrants for you to catch today!”
Not a very common protest chant, but one which Californians could sing in Orange County after Judge Mendez rebuked Jeff Sessions and the OC Supervisors for their ill-starred effort to torpedo California’s sanctuary law.
The ruling upholds the bulk of California’s sanctuary laws – which contrary to Sessions’ ridiculous misrepresentation, do NOT obliterate America’s border, do NOT protect ‘criminal’ aliens, and do NOT result in any measurable crime. They don’t even prohibit the police from disclosing criminals to ICE – just limit the discretion of the police so that they may only do so for VIOLENT criminals (as opposed to traffic citations, homelessness, disturbing the peace of white folks apt to call the cops for no particular reason).
The Sanctuary laws do a large number of things, basically to stop California citizens from exploiting, extorting, and terrorizing immigrants residing here. In most of the country, those who exploit and extort immigrants can threaten them with law enforcement if they do not acquiesce – issues that have arisen in spousal battery cases, in child custody cases, employment cases, landlord tenant cases, and darn near every other field.
“Standing aside does not equate to standing in the way.”
U.S. DISTRICT JUDGE JOHN A. MENDEZ
Mendez’s ruling does permit a stay to be placed on two sections of California’s sanctuary laws:(1) a prohibition on employers voluntarily admitting immigration officers into their premises even without a court warrant (e.g., if a mid-level manager or disgruntled employee wants to screw up his boss, he’s free to call in ICE agents for a sting)
(2) a prohibition on reverifying immigration status of employees (e.g., a mid-level manager who wants to lay off certain employees can screen them to find immigration infractions, then try to toss out the ones least likely to qualify for unemployment benefits…)
Sessions’ team has already reported this as a win, and the OC Supervisors probably will too. After all, they only lost on 67% of the law (more, actually). Most importantly, California police cannot be “commandeered” by federal orders to help ICE enforce immigration laws.
- Most likely, California will NOT become a major host state for holding noncitizens, simply because Sessions will have to tolerate Xavier Becerra inspecting those detention facilities. There’s gonna be a number of prison investors in California sobbing about all the lost profits there (preferred code words: “look at all the crime THOSE people have unleashed that we tried to prevent”)
- State and local law enforcement cooperation with immigration agents is NOT permitted, except under limited circumstances for violent criminals
But overall, life will go on in California much as it has already. Whenever Republicans accuse Californians of favoring ‘open borders’ – they have to pretend that Tijuana/San Diego lacks an already substantial wall in San Ysidro, not to mention other crossing points.
They have to pretend that California police are too stupid to tell the difference between a ‘violent criminal’ (whom they can cooperate to deport) and a ‘nonviolent criminal’ (whom they cannot), and thus need the threat of deportation to ‘help’ them do their jobs (which police never actually needed – it’s hard enough to induce witnesses to cooperate and victims to press charges without that threat lurking in the background).
The sanctuary laws make ALL Californians safer, regardless of their documentary status. But they infuriate those who benefit the most from exploiting documentation status to cheat and gouge. Let them.
Note that the ruling will almost surely be appealed, so this struggle is far from over. Oh, and by the way…there’s a vacancy in the US Supreme Court that will almost certainly come into play a few months down the line…
*The “We gave at the office…” option seems what most electeds in The OC are doing. They don’t want to become embroiled in any “missing children”, any “Lost Mother’s and
Fathers” or missing Gardeners in La Jolla or the Race Track in Del Mar! After all, lots
of tourists go there! The pivotal cry before the November election: “Duck!”
Wait — the race track in Del Mar is missing?
Look lets be serious we gotta get rid of all them damn immigrants,
and Protestants too…
Judges? Hey, Anton Scalia…..will have his cause of death released 25 years from now,
according to Texas law….. We can’t wait for the Trumpster to select “The girl” as that next
Supreme Court Justice. Wonder if she is a Jesuit? Probably not! Wonder if she and Pope Frank get along well? Probably not! No problem, “there is NO settled law”. We can go back to “Prohibition” and the “Dred Scott” decisions….any time we want. “Roe vs Wade”?
“Here lady, take this coat hanger and call me in the morning!”
“Wonder if she is a Jesuit?”
Highly unlikely since the Society of Jesus is composed of Catholic priests.
Doesn’t matter because perchlorate.
It’s strange — the factual assertion that sanctuary laws aid law enforcement (because with them unauthorized residents are more willing to report crimes and talk to police) has been around for a long time, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen an attempt to refute it. It’s like critics don’t even hear it. Has anyone ever heard a refutation?
Greg: I only know of anecdotal statements by police on each side, but perverse incentives arise for the law enforcement side that opposes sanctuary.
Undocumented victims of crime simply tend not to submit a criminal report. They face deportation if they walk into the police station, get fingerprinted after a burglary to knock out other prints, etc. Once sanctuary laws are in place, a host of real world victims who would not have filed a report will now file those reports: if 10-15% of a community would simply never report a crime, then suddenly they will report crimes, suddenly, the statistical anomaly looks like a crisis.
A police department that wants to LOOK GOOD will tend to oppose sanctuary.
A police department that wants to BE GOOD at catching criminals in the real world will favor it. They’ll care a little less about looking good statistically.
Guess which one we have had in the OC…
Ooof.
Actually all the city police departments in this county have been what I call “de facto sanctuary” for at least ten years … except not the Sheriff Dept. Now that it’s turning into such a hot button issue that may be changing.
I wrote a piece about it here
http://www.orangejuiceblog.com/2017/03/is-anaheim-already-a-sanctuary-city/
Vern: you wrote an excellent piece, and thanks for the link.
That said, even the OC Sheriff appears to be complying with California’s sanctuary law. Publicly releasing names of prisoners is explicitly permitted within that law. I recall Xavier Becerra confirming as much, though his means of doing so was misinterpreted by rightwing media as a ‘threat’ to arrest the OC sheriff. Both de facto and de jure cooperation prevail in California today (though perhaps there are investigations or charges pending of which I’m unaware). Releasing the names and release dates of convicted criminals would not terrify a community the same way an explicit policy of attempting to deport ordinary, non-violent residents who report crime would.
My point to Greg was intended to explain incentives applicable to police/sheriffs outside California and account for why he hadn’t heard a refutation of the claim that sanctuary aids law enforcement. The most incompetent/corrupt/ambitious law enforcement departments have a strong incentive to oppose sanctuary, but given their position, they’ll offer refutations that ignore or misrepresent what sanctuary is.
Similar incentives apply to property owners, particularly those who intend to develop and sell undeveloped plots outside of cities: if sanctuary results in an increase of crime reports by communities that would otherwise fear to interact with police in adjacent areas, that can upset their long-term asset valuations. In our stretch of Southern California, where most plots have already been developed, incentives favor pragmatic realities a bit more than gaming statistics to puff property values. Not the case in Texas, Arizona, and many other states.