Fed up with California’s insolence regarding the state’s all-out effort to harbor people in the United States illegally, President Donald J. Trump on Friday threatened to pull out every single Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent currently stationed there.
“Frankly it’s a disgrace, the sanctuary city situation,” Trump said at a White House meeting Thursday, as reported by The Hill.
Noting that the Golden State’s Marxist Democrat legislators and governor, Jerry Brown, have recently declared the whole of California a destination where illegal aliens can live without fear of being deported, Trump said the state has steadfastly refused to cooperate with federal immigration authorities.
Now, it may seem that California’s arrogance would cause the president to double the number of federal immigration authorities there, or even triple them.
But he’s looking at this another way and, dare I say, the right way.
“If we ever pulled our ICE out, if we ever said, ‘Hey, let California alone, let them figure it out for themselves,’ in two months they’d be begging for us to come back, they would be begging,” Trump said.
“And you know what, I’m thinking about doing it,” he added. (Related: Trump administration to sanctuary cities: Comply with immigration laws or lose grant funds.)
CBS News reporter Mark Knoller tweeted out Trump’s comments and threat.
https://twitter.com/markknoller/status/966721858061168640
Acting ICE Director Thomas Homan said last month that California ought to “hold on tight” as ICE was set to ramp up operations in the state.
This week he was facing accusations from the American Pravda media that his agency was politicizing raids on behalf of the White House. He told Fox News, "We don’t conduct raids. We conduct targeted enforcement operations.”
You know, raids. But whatever; as long as people who are in the country illegally are found and removed, which is what federal law requires.
“We don’t go into neighborhoods, knock on a bunch of doors looking for people different than us,” Homan said on Fox News. “Every person we arrest, we know exactly who we’re going to arrest, we know exactly when we’re going to arrest them.”
The National Sentinel reported in January that the administration was planning the largest roundup of illegal aliens in California in decades:
The Trump administration is planning to send hundreds of immigration agents to California as part of a massive operation to locate and deport people in the country illegally.
Homan criticized the state’s sanctuary law that Brown signed last fall. It forbids state and local law enforcement officials from cooperating with federal immigration authorities; it took effect Jan. 1.
The acting ICE director has also called on the Justice Department to begin looking into ways that local officials of sanctuary jurisdictions can be held legally and criminally liable for shielding people in the country illegally.
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielson confirmed during a Senate hearing last month that her agency had indeed been in contact with federal prosecutors to see what legal actions could be taken against local officials who implement and uphold sanctuary laws. “The Department of Justice is reviewing what avenues may be available,” Nielsen revealed to Senate Judiciary Committee members.
Homan told Fox News that sanctuary jurisdictions are not actually protecting immigrant communities like they claim.
“If I can’t arrest a bad guy in the safety of a county jail, then I have to go to his home or his place of business, and that’s an officer safety concern. Number two, when I go to that home I may find others, others that were not on my radar that now I have to take action against,” he said.
“And thirdly, they’re releasing the criminal aliens back into their communities. The very communities in which they live are the communities they victimize,” he added.
As for the president, he was complimentary of Attorney General Jeff Sessions who he said was “doing a great job on the gangs.”
J.D. Heyes is also editor-in-chief of The National Sentinel.
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