Local resistance to the law making California a “sanctuary state” continues to grow as the community of Los Alamitos prepares to vote on the issue Monday night for the second time to make the city exempt from SB54. Last month Los Alamitos started a rebellion against California’s “sanctuary law,” voting to oppose it, which then triggered 12 other communities to buck the state on the issue as well.
Another – and even bigger – shoe may drop on Tuesday, as the San Diego County Board of Supervisors – California’s second largest county, representing 3.2 million residents – decides whether or not it will join other California counties in backing the state’s dangerous sanctuary laws.
The growing opposition to SB 54 and other extreme sanctuary policies comes on the heels of the Trump Administration’s lawsuit against the state, which could potentially “claw back” targeted law enforcement funds from states and local jurisdictions that violate federal sanctuary laws. “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 Fred Whitaker, chairman of the Republican Party in Orange County.
Several California municipalities have already thumbed their noses at the state government, which many feel has been taken over by illegal alien interest groups. The Escondido City Council voted earlier this month to join a federal lawsuit against California over its “sanctuary law.” And just last week, the Orange County cities of Orange, Westminster, and Newport Beach voted to add their voices to the growing chorus of those opposing California’s sanctuary state status.
Illegal immigrant rights groups backed the state’s bill, enacted earlier this year, to become a sanctuary state, arguing that the law would make illegal immigrants more willing to share information and cooperate with local police. That argument, however, has never been proven empirically, and flies in the face of a study published recently by FAIR that revealed that sanctuary policies don’t actually promote cooperation with local police, they simply make communities less safe.
The study analyzed available data nationwide and found that there is “no discernable difference in the way immigrants report crimes or provide information in jurisdictions that maintain sanctuary policies and those that do not. In fact, under some of the most radical sanctuary policies that protect illegal alien gang members, it is fear of retribution by gangs, not fear of the police that inhibits cooperation.”