A crack in the blue wall?
The Golden State does a good job of trying to put up a unified front and portray themselves as ground zero of the #RESIST movement, but not everyone is on the same page. The passage of the sanctuary state law divided the sheriff’s departments from the police around the state and raised a lot of questions in terms of how law enforcement was supposed to do their jobs. Now we may be seeing a crack in the great blue wall as one town votes to demand exemption from sanctuary state policies. (Fox News)
One Southern California town is taking a stand against a state law that limits the cooperation between local police and federal immigration agents and encourages sanctuary cities to exist.
The City of Los Alamitos will vote on an ordinance that would exempt it from the sanctuary city law that council members say conflicts with federal law.
Members say that the state law “may be in direct conflict with federal laws and the Constitution,” not to mention going against the oath they took in taking office, The Orange County Register reports .
Officials in Los Alamitos are only expressing the concerns raised by others around the country and inside the U. S. Department of Justice. If you swore to uphold and defend the Constitution, your oath is looking a little shaky if you pass legislation designed to intentionally thwart the federal government’s ability to enforce immigration law.
Also of concern (perhaps for slightly less noble purposes) is the issue of their city qualifying for federal grant money. How much of a genius move is that? Assuming they’ve been paying attention to the ongoing fight between Jeff Sessions and California, they know that it’s a safe bet that the AG would jump at the chance to approve a nice, fat grant for any California jurisdiction that broke from the herd and upheld the law. And if this measure passes and they’ve got a pending application in the hopper, don’t be shocked if their paperwork suddenly makes its way to the top of the stack this month.
Mayor Troy Edgar of Los Alamitos is quoted in the local news coverage as saying that California had “ overstepped its bounds ” when the sanctuary state rules were signed into law. One of the city’s residents offered the quote of the day on the subject.
“Everyone holding elective office takes the same oath to uphold the laws to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. It doesn’t say unless the state legislature decides otherwise,” said Art DeBolt, a longtime community activist, via e-mail. “I do believe somewhere in our history, we fought a war to prevent states from ignoring the law of the land and preserving the union.”
We’ve been worried about the Zika virus and new, resistant strains of the flu. But in Los Alamitos, we may be seeing the beginnings of a dangerous outbreak of common sense and patriotism. No doubt state officials will want to send in a medical team to immunize the rest of them as soon as possible.
