Donald Trump understood something that
many Washington insiders missed. Many
Americans … including some naturalized citizens … bristle at elected officials constantly
defending the rights of non-Americans to migrate here illegally – and to be
rewarded for breaking the law with a path to citizenship.
Toward that end, and in deference to
his campaign promises, President-Elect Trump seems primed to deport
undocumented immigrants and withhold some federal funds from ‘sanctuary cities’
like San Francisco.
Trump appears to have put aside his campaign
rhetoric of deporting all 11-million undocumented immigrants. Now he says he would focus on 2-million or
more undocumented immigrants with criminal histories. Trump told ‘60 Minutes’ he wants to “get the
people that are criminals and have criminal records, gang members, drug
dealers. We have a lot of these people; probably
2-million, it could even be 3-million. We
are getting them out of the country or we are going to incarcerate.”
It’s hard for the mainstream media to
call that position “extreme” when it lines up with President Obama’s direction
to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to focus on removing undocumented
immigrants with serious criminal records. Under Obama, ICE’s Priority Enforcement
Program has targeted convicted criminals who threaten public safety or national
security.
The big difference, says columnist Debra Saunders for The San Francisco
Chronicle, will be that Trump means it when he says he will deport “criminal
aliens,” and Obama didn’t really mean it. After all, if Obama truly believed in
deporting criminal aliens, he would have challenged sanctuary cities like San Francisco
that protected repeat offenders from ICE,” says Saunders.
In 2010, Obama’s Department of Justice
(DoJ) sued Arizona after lawmakers passed a law to allow local law enforcement
to check the immigration status of those suspected of breaking state laws. A DoJ brief claimed “a state may not establish
its own immigration policy or enforce state laws in a manner that interferes
with the federal immigration laws.” But
the Obama Administration failed to challenge a 2013 San Francisco ordinance
that protected Juan Francisco Lopez Sanchez from being turned over to ICE. Lopez Sanchez had been convicted of 7-felonies
and deported 5-times when San Francisco District Attorney George Gascon dropped
a decade sold marijuana charge and then-Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi released Lopez
Sanchez rather than hand him over to ICE, as ICE requested. Weeks later, authorities charged the Mexican
national for the shooting death of city resident Kate Steinle. (Lopez Sanchez has pleaded not guilty.)
Trump is likely to borrow from past
legislation introduced by Sen. David Vitter (LA-R) to pull federal funding from
sanctuary cities because, Vitter argues, “sanctuary cities will continue to
exist until there are tangible penalties in place.”
What we don’t know is if Trump will
try to be as tough on sanctuary cities that simply shield undocumented crime
victims from being reported to ICE – which seems reasonable – as he should be
on San Francisco, with its extreme stance on defending career criminals who are
in the country illegally.
California’s state law also shields
repeat offenders from ICE. The TRUST Act
policy sends a message that people can live in America illegally and continue to
break laws without having to face the consequences.
The problem for President Trump is
this: If repeat offenders figure they can evade deportation by fleeing to ‘social
justice’ havens, then it will be harder for immigration officials to target the
worst threats to public safety.
There is also a principle involved
here: “As a lawyer for 60 years and a judge for 10,” Superior Court Judge Quentin
Kopp recently told columnist Saunders,
“I’m a believer in the law. That’s why I
don’t understand accepting, much less rewarding, disregard of the law.” That’s a pretty basic belief.
If the Washington establishment understood
that contract, then perhaps Donald Trump would not be president-elect. But he is; and he has a clear mandate from
‘the people’ to enforce our immigration laws and crack-down on those U.S.
cities harboring undocumented immigrants.
Rev.
Dr. Kenneth L. Beale, Jr.
Chaplain
(Colonel-Ret), U.S. Army
Pastor,
Ft. Snelling Memorial Chapel
Where in the Constitution is the federal government authorized to fund ANY city? Certainly sanctuary cities should not be funded but that implies that other cities
ReplyDeleteSHOULD be federally funded. We should not be lulled into thinking that the federal government should be funding that which they are not authorized to do.