San Diego Union-Tribune: Say, Maybe We Shouldn’t Be Allowing The Not-So-Bad Illegal Aliens To Stay

07 Apr, 2017 by William Teach

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The Editorial Board of the SDUT has some concerns

Flaw in California ‘sanctuary state’ bill needs fixing

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Yet it is possible to believe all of these things and still be wary of SB 54, a bill touted by Senate leader Kevin de León, D-Los Angeles, to make California a “sanctuary state.” In its initial form, what de León calls the “California Values Act” amounted to the state’s formal declaration of noncooperation with the federal government when it comes to federal immigration laws. The measure’s main provision would “prohibit state and local law enforcement agencies, including school police and security departments, from using resources to investigate, interrogate, detain, detect or arrest persons for immigration enforcement purposes.” After criticism from law enforcement officials, de León amended the bill to allow Sheriff’s Departments to notify Immigration and Customs Enforcement of the release from local jails of certain types of serious and violent felons; to allow law enforcement officers to notify ICE if they encountered someone with a violent felony record who had previously been deported; and to make it clear that local and state law enforcement authorities could be part of investigatory task forces led by federal agencies even if immigration enforcement were involved.

After the changes were made, de León’s bill passed the state Senate 27-12 on Monday on a party-line vote. Democrats, many of them Latino, celebrated the approval as sending President Trump, Attorney General Jeff Sessions and other immigration hardliners a defiant, principled message that California stands with its immigrant community.

But these Democrats muddle their message by refusing to take seriously concerns about their attempts to make distinctions between bad felons — take them away — and allegedly not-so-bad felons — let them stay. According to Assembly Republicans, the latter category includes people convicted of assault with a deadly weapon, human trafficking and other significant crimes.

And there’s the flaw: Democrats being soft on illegals who have committed other significant crimes in this bill which would make California a sanctuary state.

But one risk they shouldn’t take is offering protection to convicted felons who are unauthorized immigrants. They haven’t earned the compassionate treatment that de León hopes to provide.

Yet, that is the treatment that Democrats seem to be offering to illegal aliens all the time when they refuse ICE detainers. On one hand, they say they do not want the bad ones, then they show the other hand which attempts to shelter almost all illegals, even those with serious crimes. Perhaps they’ve realized that, in order to gain all these new voters if they could ever get amnesty through, they would need to ignore that a goodly chunk of illegals have committed some sort of serious crime, from DUI and identity theft to illegally crossing the border after being deported, which is a federal felony. It’s not just rape and murder and arson and assault.

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove. Follow me on Twitter @WilliamTeach.