An increasing number of Californians are growing tired of the state’s sanctuary city policy, which is currently being legally challenged by the Trump Administration.
According to The Associated Press, “at least a dozen local governments have voted to either join or support the lawsuit or for resolutions opposing the state’s position” since Attorney General Jeff Session’s Department of Justice filed suit.
The sanctuary city policy bars local law enforcement from working with federal immigration agents with regard to illegal immigrants.
Most notably, Orange County — which has more than 3 million people — voted to join the Trump legal effort to resist the sanctuary city policy earlier in the month. “When the attorney general of the United States decides to take a firm position against it, I think that gave a signal to a lot of us that, ‘Hey, California is on the wrong side of this thing,'” said the chairman of the Republican Party in Orange County, Fred Whitaker.
Escondido City Council also voted 4-1 in favor of filing a legal brief in support of the Trump administration’s lawsuit on April 4 after a rowdy town hall meeting.
“I was elected mayor to uphold the Constitution and to keep our community safe. I am committed to do that, and that’s what the council did today,” argued Mayor Sam Abed. One resident, a legal immigrant wearing a “Make America Great Again” hat, also argued against the sanctuary policy. “Forty-five years ago, we were not offered sanctuary,” he said at the town hall event. “We were not offered an easier, softer way. We were told ‘You have to be an American citizen, and here’s what you have to do.’ And we did it.”
In coming days, pockets of the state will continue to hold votes on proposals to exempt themselves from the sanctuary policy and/or back the Trump suit. “[L]eaders in the Orange County city of Los Alamitos scheduled to vote Monday on a proposal for a local law to exempt the community of 12,000 from the state law,” says the report. “On Tuesday, the San Diego County Board of Supervisors is meeting to consider joining the Trump administration lawsuit.”
Though the blue state is hyper-liberal, many Californians are seemingly rebelling against the state’s numerous extreme acts taken to protect those who broke the law and entered the country illegally. As noted by AP, Democratic leadership “has enacted a series of laws in recent years aimed at helping immigrants, including issuing driver’s licenses regardless of legal status and assisting with tuition at state universities.”
Polling indicates that the American people overall oppose sanctuary city policies and support massive cuts to even legal immigration. The 2016 presidential election was further evidence of this.
Even liberal California is apparently not immune to such a sentiment.
But this doesn’t mean leadership is totally in line with new political winds in Cali. On Monday, Governor Jerry Brown banned the National Guard from executing Trump’s orders at the Southern border, for example. “The state informed federal officials it will not allow its troops to fix and repair vehicles, operate remotely-controlled surveillance cameras to report suspicious activity to the Border Patrol, operate radios and provide ‘mission support,’ which can include clerical work, buying gas and handling payroll, according to officials with knowledge of the talks who spoke condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter,” reported the AP.