California Allegedly Threatens Police Officers Over Deportation Compliance
CA mayor: The State of California “is threatening to take pensions and charge police officers with felonies if they comply with federal deportation laws.”
Bill Wells, the mayor of El Cajon, California, claimed in a Monday post on X that the State of California “is threatening to take pensions and charge police officers with felonies if they comply with federal deportation laws. While the Trump administration is working to enforce immigration laws, California seems intent on blocking these efforts.”
Wells makes it clear that El Cajon, a city of approximately 100,000 people located 17 miles east of San Diego, is not a sanctuary city and that his police officers “are being put in an impossible position.” He wrote:
If they comply with federal immigration authorities, they risk felony charges and losing their hard-earned pensions.
This is unacceptable. No officer should have to choose between doing their duty and jeopardizing their future.
As Mayor of El Cajon, I’m doing everything in my power to protect our officers and stand against these dangerous policies.
If these disturbing claims are true, then the battle lines are already drawn for the first major showdown between U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and sanctuary state/city leaders. Defiance of this magnitude from the government of the largest sanctuary state in the country would have sweeping implications for President-elect Donald Trump’s planned mass deportation agenda.
For obvious reasons, there are no references on the internet to this reported ultimatum (or perhaps more appropriately, this reported shakedown). However, in 2017, SB 54, now known as the California Values Act, was signed into law. The law “prohibits state and local law enforcement agencies from using money or personnel to investigate, interrogate, detain, detect, or arrest people for immigration enforcement purposes.” According to the group “ICE out of California,” this law specifically prohibits state and local law enforcement agencies (excluding prisons) from engaging in the following actions:
- Immigration holds
- Making arrests on civil immigration warrants
- 287(g)
- Asking about immigration status or using immigration agents as interpreters
- Sharing personal info with ICE (e.g., work, home addresses)
- Notifying ICE of release dates
- Transfers to ICE
- Local arrests for “criminal” violations of immigration law
- ICE interviews in jail and prison
- Joint Task forces
- Databases
Unsurprisingly, the page conspicuously states, “In all cases, local law enforcement agencies can adopt policies that provide more protections.” [Emphasis added.]
🚨 California is Targeting Law Enforcement 🚨
The State of California is threatening to take pensions and charge police officers with felonies if they comply with federal deportation laws. While the Trump administration is working to enforce immigration laws, California seems… pic.twitter.com/uxkRH4pcLJ
— Bill Wells (@MayorBillWells) November 25, 2024
I am not a lawyer, but the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution essentially tells us that federal law supersedes state and local law. Article VI, Clause 2 states:
This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.
And 8 U.S.C. § 1324 – (Unannotated Title 8. Aliens and Nationality § 1324) clearly states there are criminal penalties for bringing in and harboring aliens.
Shocked that a mayor is unaware of the Supremacy clause of U.S. Constitution. You swore an oath to it. Federal law supersedes state & local law. Among federal law, is this gem right here. https://t.co/sHva4oE02L
— SoothSharingSamaritan🇺🇸🦅💫 (@imscotte) November 25, 2024
Again, if this story is true, then the State of California is engaging in financial blackmail against police officers, as one commenter notes below.
I’d imagine financially blackmailing someone into committing federal crimes is quite illegal. Whoever is responsible in CA for this insanity should be going to prison.
— Max Luck (@MaxLuck_) November 25, 2024
Federal law supersedes state law. This is under Federal jurisdiction. As such, Federal authorities need to move against State authorities who refuse to comply with the law. Let them face felony charges rather than the men and women who are doing their sworn duty.
— JMG (@JMark5977) November 25, 2024
Wells has courageously sounded the alarm and, by now, Trump’s new border czar Tom Homan has likely been apprised of this alleged new threat.
The no-nonsense Homan has already indicated he won’t hesitate to jail officials who break federal law to protect illegal immigrants.
During a Tuesday morning interview with Fox News, Homan responded to questions about Denver Mayor Mike Johnston, who has been extremely vocal about his opposition to the planned mass deportations. (I posted about Johnston’s remarks here.)
[Johnston recently told a local media outlet, not only are we “gonna continue to be a welcoming, open, big-hearted city that’s gonna stand by our values,” but “more than us having DPD stationed at the county line to keep them out, you would have 50,000 Denverites there. … It’s like the Tiananmen Square moment with the rose and the gun, right?,” he defiantly added.]
Homan told Fox, “Look, me and the Denver mayor, we agree on one thing. He’s willing to go to jail, I’m willing to put him in jail.”
And jail isn’t the only weapon in his arsenal. During an interview with Homan, which aired on Sunday night, Fox News’s Mark Levin pointed out that Homan has another “very, very powerful weapon that the Democrats, when they’re in power, use against Republican administrations, state and local, all the time: federal funding.”
California’s alleged willingness to use police officers as pawns in this fight is despicable. Any attempts to threaten local and state law enforcement officers with felony charges and the confiscation of their pensions will not work out well for the virtue-signaling California Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Elizabeth writes commentary for The Washington Examiner. She is an academy fellow at The Heritage Foundation and a member of the Editorial Board at The Sixteenth Council, a London think tank. Please follow Elizabeth on X or LinkedIn.
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Cut off all Federal funds to the Peoples Democrat Republic of California. Expel the California congressional delegation from Congress. Ignore courts that rule you cannot do those things.
If the Communists are going to ignore the law and do what they please then it is time to do likewise.
Don’t know why you were voted down.
The only logical conclusion is that Gavin Newsom is posting here.
As jr?
Those are just regular blue California voters.
Better, revoke California’s statehood on the basis of Article IV, Section 4 (first clause).
Not only is CA not violating the Full Faith and Credit clause, but even if it were to violate it that cannot result in the revocation of statehood. There is no procedure in the constitution for revoking statehood. Congress can grant statehood (with the consent of any states whose territory would be affected), but it can’t revoke statehood (certainly not without the consent of all affected states, which would include the one that is to be revoked).
Do I really need to point out that GWB was not citing the Full Faith and Credit Clause in Art. IV, Section 1, but the Guarantee Clause in Art. IV, Section 4, clause 1 (guaranteeing a republican form of government to every state)?
California has a republican form of government. It has an elected legislature and governor. That is all a republican form of government requires.
See Federalist 49: “a government which derives all its powers directly or indirectly from the great body of the people, and is administered by persons holding their offices during pleasure, for a limited period, or during good behavior. […] It is SUFFICIENT for such a government that the persons administering it be appointed, either directly or indirectly, by the people; and that they hold their appointments by either of the tenures just specified”. All this fits California
In addition, nothing in the constitution authorizes anyone to revoke a state’s status just because it lacks a republican form of government. The remedies for such a state are not specified, but they could include Congress refusing to seat its representatives and senators, or the president sending in troops to hold elections. Revoking statehood isn’t an available remedy.
Who else just KNEW Milhouse would pop up here hemming and hawing and splitting words and phrases and comma placement pointing out that what CA is doing/planning to do is just fine. Probably isn’t a soapbox big enough for him to stand on to scream about the illegality should a red state be doing the opposite to a Harris/Waltz administration. It’s ALWAYS (D)ifferent when you libs do it huh..,,
Get lost, you filthy lying piece of shit. Your lies are disgusting. You are disgusting. You do nothing but lie and lie and lie and lie and lie. The world would be a far better place without you; certainly this forum would be. You have never ever contributed anything of value to it, just lies and venom.
Wall off California, stop deliveries of outside energy and fuel. Dump all illegals into their state wide cage:) Isolate them until they are ready to comply with the law of the land.
You can’t do that. You are the one ignoring the law here.
Perhaps we could all commit to following the law. I understand that democracy depends upon it.
We are a republic
We are also a democracy. The founders were very clear about that. “Republic” and “democracy” neither contradict each other nor imply each other. They are two separate qualities, both of which were to apply to the USA.
The ONLY democratic processes specified in the Constitution (before the amendments) was for the House of Representatives. That was it. And even in that case the idea of universal suffrage was not anywhere in consideration in any way, shape, or form.
That is what the Founders thought about these concepts and how they fashioned the American governmental architecture.
First of all, that is not true. The senate was also to be democratically elected by the legislatures who are elected by the people. That is democratic. And the presidential electors are to be appointed according to rules set by each state legislature, which is elected. That too is democratic.
But that misses the point. The very same founders who characterized the USA as a republic also characterized it as a democracy. It is therefore dishonest and stupid to insist that it is one of these but not the other.
And as Federalist 49 points out, a republic by itself is nothing to write home about. Holland, Venice, and Poland were all republics, and yet none of them were what the founders had in mind.
LOL.
If you read the Constitution you would see that the legislatures are left to choose (“chosen by the Legislature thereof”) in any manner they saw fit, to pick their Senators.
But, that aside, according to you, anything that happens that is connected, in any way, to an election that happened at some time, for something else … that is “democratic”.
You are a complete retard.
Liar. The legislatures are to elect the senators. That’s what “choose” means. A legislature can only act by voting. That’s its only means of doing anything. So how could they choose a senator other than by voting for him?
Anything an elected legislature does is by definition democratic. That’s what democracy means. And it’s also what the founders meant by a republic. They explicitly said so.
Law enforcement can’t enforce the law?
Yes, it can and must. That is the whole point. CA law is that state and local officers may not assist in the enforcement of federal immigration law. CA has the right to make such a law, and local policemen must of course comply with it. Otherwise they’re lawbreakers, exactly like the illegal aliens they’re helping to arrest.
(iii) knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that an alien has come to, entered, or remains in the United States in violation of law, conceals, harbors, or shields from detection, or attempts to conceal, harbor, or shield from detection, such alien in any place, including any building or any means of transportation;
Apparently CA law makes it unlawful to turn aliens over to ICE.
Avoiding transgressions of both laws simultaneously seems like threading a needle if an known illegal alien is in the local jail.
No California officer has ever been found to have “concealed, harbored, or shielded from detection” an illegal alien. CA law certainly does not require or encourage them to do so.
However it does make it illegal to turn them over to ICE, which federal law does not and cannot require.
There’s no needle-threading required. The line is very very clear, and has been clear for over 200 years. If your state disapproves of a federal law and forbids you to help enforce it, then you must not do anything to help the feds, but nor may you actively hinder them.
When ICE comes knocking you do not stand in their way, but you do not help them. If they have a warrant you let them in the building; if they don’t, you don’t let them in.
if they have a warrant to arrest someone in your jail, you let them take him away. You stand aside and do nothing. If they have no warrant then you don’t allow a kidnapping.
You just do your job and allow them to do theirs.
“No California officer has ever been found to have “concealed, harbored, or shielded from detection” an illegal alien.”
No one has ever tested that proposition.
That there has never been a case found is a fact. If you want to speculate that somewhere, somehow, it has happened, feel free, but you are just guessing and pointing fingers with no evidence whatsoever. I can just as easily claim that you murdered three prostitutes and buried them in your back yard, or that Trump did so, or any other wild and ridiculous fantasy.
They aren’t enforcing it… the plan is to ACTIVELY stop and thwart efforts to enforce federal law and you damn well know it. Stop playing word games
No it is not. Sanctuary cities and states have been operating for a long time now, and none have ever done that. Not one case, ever. So as usual you are full of lies and shit and more lies. You have never ever told the truth here about anything, or contributed anything of value. You are a poison in this forum; go away.
And the feds are free to cut off subsidies to CA.
No, they are not. The courts have been very clear about that, over and over. The administration cannot cut funds from a state, even a little bit, to persuade it to do what it does not have to. Even Congress itself can only make cuts small enough that the state still has a choice whether to comply and take the money or continue its defiance and do without it. A cut that is too big for the state to be able to afford it is unconstitutional. So says the Supreme Court and nobody has ever challenged it.
That is the insurrection knob turned up to 11!
No, it isn’t, it’s taking the constitution seriously. Which you are not, because you don’t give a shit about the constitution, you just want what you want and will adopt any position that helps you achieve it, even if it contradicts the position you held yesterday.
LOL.
As usual, you are completely incorrect.
Just refusing to give help to feds enforcing federal law is one thing, shielding criminals in that process is another. Then, to sanction officers who do decide to help feds in their lawful federal duties (while shielding criminals – which is explicit in the “sanctuary” label) is an altogether different animal.
States are not allowed to offer any sort of sanctuary from the federal government. That is not how this nation works. You can argue for that until you are blue in the face and it won’t change a thing. If a state is at odds with the federal government then that state can secede, but short of that the state is bound to the federal government in areas that the Constitution gives to the feds.
You are incorrect, and every single court for the last 200+ years agrees with me and disagrees with you.
Nobody is shielding criminals. No sanctuary state or city has ever been found to have shielded anyone. That is not what a sanctuary is.
The supreme court ruled 200 years ago that states can “sanction officers who do decide to help feds in their lawful federal duties”.
Yes, states are explicitly “allowed to offer any sort of sanctuary from the federal government”, and they have exercised that right with the full support of the courts.
Didn’t Jefferson Davis try this, too?
We can check Title 8 and the supremacy clause.
Check the tenth amendment while you’re about it, and the many court decisions expounding its relevance to this topic.
Nullification doctrine.
Ableman v. Booth, 62 U.S. 506 (1859) which rejected Wisconsin’s attempt to nullify the Fugitive Slave Act.
Cooper v. Aaron, 358 U.S. 1 (1958) denied the school board of Little Rock, Arkansas the right to delay racial desegregation for 30 months.
This is the State of California nullifying federal immigration law
Article 1 section 8 “To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform
Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States;”
It’s a power delegated to theUnited States (i.e., the federal government) by the Constitution
No, it is not nullification. It is California exercising its undisputed constitutional right to refuse to assist the federal government in enforcing a law it disapproves of. The courts have been crystal clear for the entire history of the USA that the tenth amendment protects a state’s right to do this, and that Congress has no authority to compel a state to do so, not even by merely refusing funding.
Hum… the Dems want federal laws for abortion and gun control but become staunch advocates for “states’ rights” on illegal immigration which is an interstate issue courtesy of the Biden Admin transporting people across state lines.
What Dems want is irrelevant. They’re not serious people, and they shouldn’t be expected to be principled. People on our side should be expected to be principled, but unfortunately many are just as unprincipled as the Dems, and are therefore no better than them. If we can only win by becoming Dems then we shouldn’t win.
If California pulls this stunt, it should be considered in rebellion against the Federal government. As Recovering Lutheran suggested, California should lose its House and Senate votes as well as any federal money going its way until it is in compliance with federal laws.
If you do that you will be in rebellion against the constitution.
California is in compliance with all federal laws. Any law that requires it to cooperate with ICE would be unconstitutional. And Congress knows that, so it has never made such a law.
Run ads non stop in California telling them of every girl or woman raped or murdered by an illegal alien. Tell them that Democrats prefer to protect illegal alien rapists and murderers over members of their family. Gavin Newsom is a vile disgusting POS.
How about a bonus plan for headhunters to recruit police officers to leave California?
Yes, this is a good idea that does not violate the constitution and indeed is an exercise of the freedom of speech, which the federal government possesses just as much as any individual.
CA don’t care if women are abused. Unless they can blame it on straight white males of privilege.
I hope they put Newsome in the general population … instead of segregation ….
Nope. Club Fed.
Gov. Noisome is no doubt well aware of the legal jeopardy he would face if he publicly threatened police with prosecution for obeying the Federal law, and, being stunningly courageous, he will never take a chance of being personally incarcerated for his anti-Trump campaign.
He is in no jeopardy, because not only is there no such federal law, there can’t be one. Congress knows it has no authority to make such a law, which is why it never has.
OK, I’m gonna be the devil’s advocate here.
I strongly suspect that the California law is operating under the principle established by Prinz v. US, which, if you recall, was a victory for conservatives.
Prinz involved requirements put on non-federal LEO by the passage of the Brady bill. Sheriffs and police chiefs were required to perform background checks on prospective gun buyers and enforce a waiting period to receive purchases. Sheriff Prinz said emphatically, hell no. The feds were not funding this activity, and local and state law enforcement hadn’t volunteered to do it, so the requirement violated federalism and was unconstitutional. The sheriff was victorious, and the feds ended up having to eat the background check work themselves.
I suspect strongly that if you read the California bill, the activities that police officers have been forbidden to do are not activities REQUIRED of them by any federal law, but just activities which locals tend to volunteer to assist or cooperate with the feds in performing. California is now saying that you’re not authorized to spend state money performing federal duties for free, same as Sheriff Prinz argued.
If you can find some activity prohibited in that bill which local law enforcement is specifically required by federal law to perform, either that activity is suitable for another Prinz-type lawsuit, or California is violating federal law.
The principle wasn’t established by Prinz. It was already very well-established by then. But yes, Prinz is a relatively recent case upholding it.
So is part 3 of the original 0bamacare decision, NFIB v Sibelius, which held that Congress couldn’t use its funding power to force states to establish 0bamacare exchanges.
Several days ago Newsom visited areas of California which voted for Trump, saying “It’s not about voters. I care about people.” Well, the people he seems to care about most are illegal aliens to the detriment of the law abiding taxpaying residents of California.
The vile, lawless, stupid and hypocritical Dhimmi-crat apparatchiks love the concept of robust and muscular federal authority — just so long as they’re in charge of the federal government, exclusively.
These toddlers don’t like the opposition party enjoying the same Constitutional privileges with regard to the Supremacy Clause.
2/3 babies born in LA hospitals are now born to illegal alien mothers..
Either relocate to different state, or remain and enjoy the decline.
California is 100% correct on this, and the El Cajon mayor is wrong. The Supreme Court endorsed California’s position nearly 200 years ago, and it’s been the law of the land ever since.
Their duty is to the state law, which is binding on them. They have no right to violate that law by assisting federal law enforcement when the state has made it illegal. If they do so they are just as bad as illegal immigrants.
What obvious reasons? I see no reason why nobody would report on a completely expected thing like a state warning potential offenders that it will enforce its laws.
Yes, it does. But there is no federal law that requires local officials to take any of the actions that the CA law bans, and Congress cannot make such a law, because it would violate the tenth amendment.
Indeed it does, and no California official has ever been caught doing so. Certainly CA law does not require them to do so, and nobody is being threatened with anything for not doing so.
That is not happening. CA expects its officers to comply with a valid, binding state law, which is protected by the constitution and Congress does not have the authority to override, nor has it ever even attempted to do so. It does not expect its officers to harbor illegal aliens, which would indeed be a federal crime.
A CA officer’s duty, when ICE comes knocking, is to step aside and let the federal agents do their duty, while not giving them any assistance whatsoever, or allowing them to use even a penny’s worth of state or local resources. Passive resistance. That complies completely with federal law, and is required by state law. And that has been the established law for 200 years or more.
Oops, I messed up the formatting there. There should be a </blockquote> after “who refuse to comply with the law”.
You make the case for encouraging California police to leave.
Isn’t this ultimately leading to a confrontation with states being forced to comply with federal law?
No, it’s about the well-established principle that Congress cannot make a law requiring states or their subdivisions to enforce federal laws that they don’t like. And the fact that Congress, which is well aware of this principle, hasn’t made any such law.
And yet the Dems and courts force red states all the damn time…
No, they don’t, you filthy disgusting liar. You just make shit up and expect people to believe it. They have never ever done that. If they ever tried, those states would immediately challenge it in court, and win.
This as a start: Put ICE with TSA at the airports and all state border checkpoints to keep all illegals in California or they get processed Cut all federal funds going into California. Require 100% incoming container inventory by federal inspectors and limit the number of inspectors. Have federal Agriculture export inspections and limit the ports of exit and inspectors.
This would be a start. I am sure Trump’s think tank could do better than I could.
Congress can’t do most of that, and certainly the administration can’t do it without Congress’s authority.
Most of this is standard anti-comandeering doctrine stuff. I don’t think it would be useful for officers to conceal what they know about illegal aliens if asked directly by ICE, but they can be barred from volunteering anything. Certainly California is not required to do ICE’s job for them.
Bah! “Lawful”, not “useful.”
It would indeed be lawful for them to clean what they know, even if asked directly, because they are under no obligation to answer ICE’s questions. Nobody is, even ordinary people, let alone a state’s officers. If ICE asks you a question, do you have to answer? No, of course not. So how can you imagine that a state’s officers do have such a duty?
To everyone loudly saying, “But this law is Federal law and passed by Congress and therefore must be obeyed completely” should remember that the Fugitive Slave Act was also passed by Congress and was the law of the land.
That one didn’t age well either.
There isn’t even any such law. These commenters here are just making it up.
If there were such a law it would be unconstitutional. But there isn’t.
The Gabbling Nuisance is a litle Hitler WannaBe, albei a very poor fourth rate one.
Someone needs to take a VERY large print copy of the US Constitution and plop in on the table in front of him, then demand he READ that bit about how FedGov are exclusively tasked with all matters pertaining to immigration and naturalisation. End of story.
Maybe this knucklehead wants to go down in history with his own mug shot right next to that of George Wallace. Make The Nuisance a REAL felon so he can’t try and be crowned King of Kalifornia.
I’d be obliged if you plopped a copy of the US Constitution on the table in front of me, so you could point out to me the part that says the FedGov has dick-all to say about immigration.
Not naturalization — IMMIGRATION.
Exactly. There is not one word in the constitution giving Congress any authority at all over immigration. The entire idea that it could regulate immigration dates from after the Civil War, and that was not an originalist era. The Supreme Court simply made up an authority and gave it to Congress, and we’ve been stuck with it ever since. A thorough-going originalist would reject it.
But even if there were such a power enumerated in the constitution, it wouldn’t change anything about sanctuary states. The tenth amendment protects states’ right to refuse to help enforce even completely valid federal laws. Congress simply does not get to commandeer state resources. If Congress wants its laws enforced, it needs to give federal officers enough resources to do so without anyone’s help.
Why aren’t the police unions getting involved? Can they ask for an injunction of some kind or is this too remote to qualify?
No, they can’t ask for an injunction, because the state is 100% correct. Every court in the land will immediately tell them that. If you don’t want to lose your pension, don’t violate state law. The moment you do any of the things the law explicitly forbids you to do, you are in the wrong.
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