Trump mulls pulling ICE from uncooperative 'sanctuary' California: 'They'd beg us to come back'

RT
Fri, 23 Feb 2018 12:24 UTC

© Mike Blake / Reuters

Homeland Security ICE bus is parked outside federal jail in San Diego.

President Donald Trump said he is "thinking about" ordering border patrol and immigration enforcement out of California over the state's sanctuary policies, to demonstrate that it would result in a crime wave.

Trump brought up California's "sanctuary state" policies at Thursday's meeting about school safety at the White House, prompted by last week's mass shooting at a Parkland, Florida high school.

"Frankly, it's a disgrace. The sanctuary city situation," Trump told a gathering of his Cabinet members, state and local officials. "If we ever pulled our ICE out... in two months they'd be begging for us to come back. They would be begging. And you know what? I'm thinking about doing it."

If Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Border Patrol were told to leave California alone, "you'd see crime like nobody's ever seen crime in this country," Trump argued.

White House spokesman Raj Shah described the actions of California's leadership as "troubling."

"We think California should actually enforce federal immigration law instead of get in the way of it," Shah told reporters at the White House.

A number of cities and counties in California have adopted "sanctuary" policies, meaning that they refuse to cooperate with federal authorities in detaining immigrants that are in the US illegally. In October, however, Governor Jerry Brown (D) signed a law declaring the entire state a sanctuary. Under the law, local officials can't use state funds to aid federal immigration enforcement and federal officials are required to obtain a warrant before accessing California work sites.

Employers are also forbidden to share confidential employee information without a subpoena. California attorney general Xavier Becerra has threatened harsh penalties for companies that cooperate with federal authorities in violation of the state law.

Last month, two Democrat senators from California, Dianne Feinstein and Kamala Harris, wrote to ICE demanding documents about "troubling" ICE raids in the state. Using scarce ICE resources to punish California and score political points is "an abhorrent abuse of power," they wrote.

Acting ICE Director Thomas Homan rejected the criticism, saying that ICE is not conducting indiscriminate raids targeting minorities.

"I didn't think these senators were in the business of enacting laws they didn't want enforced. I'm enforcing the laws they enacted," Homan told Fox News on Wednesday.

Comment:

• California lawmakers pass resolution challenging Trump immigration policies
• Poll finds that 80% of American voters oppose 'sanctuary cities'

And some cold truth: Forensic criminologist: The truth about crime, illegal immigrants and sanctuary cities

I am a former Spanish speaking career detective who investigated violent crimes within the Hispanic and other ethnic immigrant communities.

I am also a forensic criminologist who is a subject matter expert in violent crime who advocates for facts and evidence. Here are some verified crime facts and statistics with you so that you will know the truth about the precarious relationship between violent crime and illegal immigrants.

As Americans, we should only care about three things: (1) are the immigrants in the U.S. illegally; (2) have they committed violent crimes predominantly against U.S. citizens; and (3) had these criminals not been in our country illegally, these crimes, the victimization of our citizens and the costs of their crimes borne by American taxpayers could have been completely avoided.

Previous administrations have deliberately kept Americans in the dark about illegal immigrant crimes

Most states and our federal government have kept information and statistics about illegal immigration, crimes committed by illegals and the costs borne by you the U.S. payer out of public view

[...]

According to the FBI, 67,642 murders were committed in the U.S. from 2005 through 2008, and 115,717 from 2003 through 2009. The General Accounting Office documents that criminal immigrants committed 25,064 of these murders.

To extrapolate out these statistics, this means that a population of just over 3.5 percent residing in the U.S. unlawfully committed 22 percent to 37 percent of all murders in the nation. This is astounding.

Illegal immigrants clearly commit a level of violent and drug related crimes disproportionate to their population

Vetted crime statistics from USDOJ, the U.S. Sentencing Commission and the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) are both clear and demonstrative that illegal immigrants who comprise only 3.5 percent of our nation's population, are convicted and sentenced for the crime of murder at a rate of three times that of their American citizen and legal immigrant counterparts.