If you remember back to the debate over Arizona’s SB1070, a law that allowed law enforcement to enforce federal law as written, California, California law makers, and California papers took the stance that immigration was the purview of the federal government, and that states couldn’t change that in the least. Today, though, as we discuss illegal aliens, California wants to do its own thing
State makes its case against immigration conditions attached to U.S. grants
By requiring San Francisco and other California communities to allow federal immigration agents into their jails and give them 48 hours’ notice of certain immigrants’ release from custody, Attorney General Jeff Sessions is defying Congress, the Constitution and the standards of good law enforcement, California’s top attorney says.
A lawsuit by California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, filed in federal court late Monday, contains some of the same legal arguments that San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera presented in a suit against Sessions on Friday: that the Trump administration is illegally restricting Justice Department financial grants by attaching immigration conditions that Congress never authorized and that are unrelated to the purpose of the grants.
Interestingly, there were no complaints when Obama threatened to do things like restrict funding from school districts that didn’t allow the gender confused to use whichever bathroom, shower, and changing room they wanted.
The state’s suit, with $28.3 million at stake in federal grants to local governments and Becerra’s office for the next fiscal year, argues further that California is constitutionally entitled to decide how to keep its communities safe by setting its own rules for contacts between law enforcement authorities and local residents, regardless of their immigration status.
Oh, so, suddenly the 10th Amendment is important to them? And they’re claiming that immigration is now a state issue? These people.
Can anyone explain what is so difficult about picking up a phone for a quick call or sending an email to ICE to let them know an illegal alien who is in jail is going to be released within 48 hours? And what’s so difficult about honoring an ICE detainer for 48 hours? Or allowing federal immigration officials access to the jails? These people are, get this, in jail for committing a crime.
The Trump administration is trying to “usurp the state and its (local governments’) discretion to determine how best to protect public safety,†Becerra’s lawyers said. Specifically, they said, the new federal rules will interfere with state laws that “strengthen community policing efforts by encouraging undocumented victims to report crimes to local law enforcement.â€
Were opponents of SB1070, and all other laws passed by states that require things such as law enforcement cooperation, not just claiming that immigration is a function of the federal government, and not the states? Yes, yes they were. California is looking to have it both ways, and, more importantly, to weaken the law on those who are unlawfully present in the U.S.
