CA Gov. Jerry Brown pardons immigrants slated for deportation due to criminal convictions
As California’s War on Trump continues into 2018, Los Angeles is denied $3 million in funding by the DOJ.
File this story under “Elections Have Consequences.”
California Governor Jerry Brown Brown used a Christmas holiday tradition and granted pardons to two immigrants who were on the verge of being deported for committing crimes while in this country.
Brown, pairing his state’s combative approach to federal immigration authorities with his belief in the power of redemption, characterized the pardons as acts of mercy.
The Democratic governor moved as federal officials in recent months have detained and deported immigrants with felony convictions that resulted in the loss of their legal residency status, including many with nonviolent offenses that occurred years ago.
With the pardons, the reason for applicants’ deportations may be eliminated, said attorney Kevin Lo of Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Asian Law Caucus, which represented some of the men in a recent class-action lawsuit.
The news reports indicate the acts were in response to President Donald Trump’s focus on stemming illegal immigration.
The pardons of Rottanak Kong of Davis and Mony Neth of Modesto could be seen as another poke at the Trump administration’s hard-line policies on immigration.
Both men came to the United States as children when their families fled the Khmer Rouge government that killed millions of its own people. They were recently detained as part of a federal immigration roundup, although a California-based federal judge has temporarily halted the deportation of hundreds of Cambodian refugees.
Kong was sentenced to a year in Stanislaus County jail in 2003 for joyriding. He served seven months. Neth was convicted in 1995, also in Stanislaus County, on weapons and receiving stolen property charges. He also served his sentence.
Brown’s pardons said both men had become law-abiding citizens and paid their debts to society.
In news that seems related, the Department of Justice cut funding to one of California’s most prominent “sanctuary cities“.
This year, L.A. officials applied for more than $3 million in federal funding to help bring the same program to Harvard Park, a South L.A. neighborhood scarred by violence.
The request was denied.
The U.S. Department of Justice hasn’t offered the LAPD an explanation of why the department didn’t receive any of the $98 million in grants recently awarded to scores of law enforcement agencies across the nation. A spokesman for the federal agency declined to comment when asked by The Times last week.
But after the Trump administration’s repeated threats to withhold federal money from cities that don’t cooperate with its immigration crackdown, some LAPD officials said they believe the move was retaliatory — and a troubling sign of what could come.
…In announcing the grant awards last month, the Justice Department noted that 80% of the agencies that received funds earned extra points “based on their certifications of willingness to cooperate with federal immigration authorities.”
L.A. did not sign that certification, LAPD officials said.
It appears of if California’s War on Trump will continue through 2018. I am a little surprised that after seeing Trump’s presidential style in the past year that the LA officials did not anticipate the consequences.
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Comments
Isn’t Jerry kept safe from criminals by armed guards? The MSM will publicize the “safest” of the pardoned of course.
Who’s gonna pardon Jerry Brown?
NO ONE!
Placing citizens and legal immigrants second, and babies deemed unworthy third.
Immigration reform enables social justice adventures (e.g. elective regime changes, “clean” wars), “humane” abortion fields, resource redistribution (e.g. Libyan oil, South African minerals), labor arbitrage (e.g. unlivable wages), and sustains the native causes of mass exodus (i.e. million man, woman, child immigration).
If the federal rule is that they can be deported if they a have felony conviction, then they can still be deported. A pardon may excuse the punishment, but it can’t remove that fact that the person was convicted in a trial.
unless the state purges those records, easy enuf for the party of deleted emails.
I think a pardon only changes the legal status of a conviction after the date of the pardon. Between the date of conviction and the date of the pardon, the legal status is “convicted of a crime.”
If the deportation depends on the legal status on the day of deportation, then the deportation would lack a basis I think. However, if the deportation depends on “having been convicted of a crime,” then I think the pardon would have no legal effect as there was a period of that legal status. I think only a court, such as on appeal, can negate the fact of a conviction.
However, I do not know the laws or regulations that are in play here. And, I do not trust the judges to follow the law
Just a thought, probably not politically doable. But if California and various cities keep declaring themselves as sanctuary cities that won’t cooperate with feds deporting illegal CRIMINALS, then maybe President Trump should direct ICE and DHS to concentrate more efforts on deporting DREAMERS in those same states and cities. If they want the feds to focus on the criminals and not the DREAMERS then they need to revoke their sanctuary policies and start helping the feds deal with the criminals.
Jerry Brown needs to be taken down a notch or two, he thinks he’s President
Just wait till one of these criminals kills someone, but hey, it’s California where illegals can kill beautiful young white women and be deemed innocent and set free..
Your comment is spot on. Jerry Brown acts like he is President. If he foolhardily continues his war on Trump and the Trump Administration responds by denying future CA funding requests, CA will have a choice to make: raise existing taxes, create new taxes to make up for lost federal grants or conform to and comply with tfederal laws.
Brown and Cuomo are playing with matches. And the cover of the book of matches says “Willie Horton.”
Jerry is behaving very much like the supposed tyrant he despises in the whitehouse. He and California are revolting against anything and everything that the Trump administration accomplishes with its agenda and legislation. I imagine that CA will continue to do this sabotaging all of its Californian constituents. Sad. My state sucks so bad.
I understand felony convictions for weapons and robbery but felony joyriding? At any rate Cambodia today is not the Cambodia of yesterday. Goodbye illegals.
“Felony joyriding” was likely the result of a plea deal. The original charge was probably grand theft auto.
Felony joyriding is one of the more ridiculous statutes in the People’s Republic of Kalifornia. It is intended to protect people who steal the property of others but say that they intend to give it back. And, unless the thief actually returns the vehicle, how does one know that he intended to return it? Usually, if the person returns the purloined vehicle, within a couple of hours, the owner declines to prosecute and the case is never charged, or dropped.
Under the system of jurisprudence practiced in most states, one can present mitigating circumstances to mount a defense against a charge, In the case of someone who takes a vehicle to take someone to the hospital or to escape a deadly assailant, such exigent circumstances usually result in charges not being filed or, if filed, dropped, if the person taking the vehicle makes a good faith effort to return it.
No, it’s in pretty much every state and every common-law country.
On the contrary, it’s intended to get those people, and protect their victims.
It’s not his job to prove he intended to return it, it’s the state’s job to prove beyond reasonable doubt that he didn’t, and how can it do that? Hence without a specific law against “borrowing” a car without permission, it’s impossible to convict joyriders. Which is why every state & country has made such a law.
No offense intended Milhouse but that’s funny. You are talking about the duty of the State…
The governor just used his executive powers to poke Trump in the eye.
They weren’t pardoned because they were found to be innocent, or because their senentences were too harsh, or because the Governor thought they had served their time.
They were pardoned to sidestep Federal immigration policy.
Rule of law my ass.