According to a new study from the Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Asian Law Caucus and the University of Oxford Centre for Criminology-Border Criminologies, California’s implementation of its “California Values Act” sanctuary cities law is not going particularly well. In fact, sheriffs in roughly half the state’s jurisdictions are actively resisting enforcement of the measure.
Paul Bedard of the Washington Examiner reports:
Nearly half of California sheriff departments are protesting a new California law that bars them from helping federal immigration officials find criminal illegal immigrants, according to a new report.
What’s more, several of the 169 law enforcement agencies in California are challenging former Gov. Jerry Brown’s bid to hide criminal illegals by letting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials to seize the wanted prisoners for deportation and not telling the state. …
The report from the University of Oxford Centre for Criminology-Border Criminologies reveals what many law enforcement agencies are doing to get around the law. The report is critical of those moves and calls on the state to crack down on agencies that help ICE to find and remove criminal illegals.
Specifically, according to Bedard, 68 out of 169 sheriff departments considered by the study — about 40% — were not in compliance.
Nonetheless, despite nearly half of all sheriff departments not fully complying, the Oxford study still reports that, “In its first five months from January 2018 to May 2018, [California Values Act] implementation led to a 41% decrease in ICE arrests at local jails compared to the immediately preceding five months from August 2017 to December 2017.”
The study’s conclusion took direct aim at the resisting California sheriffs:
The California Values Act is one of the most expansive sanctuary laws in the country. As a result of implementation of this new law, there has been a notable drop in [law enforcement agency (LEA)]-assisted [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] and [Customs and Border Protection] arrests in the state, especially when compared to anti-sanctuary states such as Texas. However, there is much work to be done by the State to bring LEAs into full compliance with SB 54 and to ensure that the law is not undermined through the exploitation of its policy exceptions. At a time when the federal administration has been hostile to immigrant communities and has ramped up immigration arrests, detentions, and deportations, it is imperative that Californians are confident that their local, county, and state government will not work to deport them, their family members, friends, co-workers, and neighbors.
Nonetheless, Dan Cadman of the conservative Center Immigration Studies had a different take:
The practical effects of the [California Values Act] have been disastrous. Many individuals have been needlessly injured or murdered by aliens released to the street by misguided enforcement organizations in the state. Some of the circumstances involved have been brutal and horrific.
Sadly, a number of those slain by illegal aliens released to the streets have been police officers and sheriff’s deputies (see, e.g., here, and here). Some other lucky few officers have escaped with their lives. One of the illegal aliens (with a long history of prior drug convictions), who was later arrested and tried for the murders, profanely declared he didn’t “f-ing regret it” and went on to threaten the jurors. …
Bravo! I hope [resisting LEAs] keep on doing it, and that more join them. What’s that motto on the side of many police cars? Oh, that’s right, it’s “To Serve and Protect”. What better way to do that than to see alien criminals removed from American communities, instead of releasing them to offend again.
There is presently an “unprecedented” migrant influx at the U.S.’s southern border. President Trump has threatened to fully close the border in order to attempt to stanch the problem.