JEFF SESSIONS IS RIGHT
Last week I got a call from the attorney general of the United States. Yep, that one. The guy who just filed a federal lawsuit against the state of California.
I don’t usually get phone calls from attorneys general. Let me amend that; I never get phone calls from attorneys general, at least not until Wednesday. But Jeff Sessions was in Sacramento to speak to the California Peace Officers Association, and he had a lot to say.
“California, we have a problem,” said the attorney general, and love him, hate him or never heard of him, he happens to be right.
The Golden State has gone rogue, having taken the radical step of passing SB 54, designating California an official sanctuary state for immigrants living in the country illegally. With an estimated 2.3 million illegal immigrants, California has, by far, the largest undocumented population in the country.
By signing SB 54, Gov. Jerry Brown codified what he once denied, that California doesn’t care how you get here, once you’re here, you’re here. He also doesn’t care that SB 54 has opened a legal Pandora’s box, in effect, nullifying the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution. “We (the federal government) didn’t start this.” Sessions told me about 40 minutes before taking the podium in Sacramento. “California’s Legislature and governor put us in a position where we had to go to court. I don’t want to do this.”
Left unchecked, California’s sanctuary laws will lead to disunion. This might sound like hyperbole, but it’s not. Nullification was the philosophic foundation of the Confederacy.
“Federal law is the supreme law of the land,” Sessions said.
“I would invite any doubters to Gettysburg, and to the graves of John C. Calhoun and Abraham Lincoln.” The concept of nullification is the evil spawn of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. Known to history as the “Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions,” Jefferson and Madison’s monster would have empowered the states to ignore any federal law they didn’t like. Fortunately, the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions were rejected. George Washington warned they would “dissolve the union.”
Yet, the concept lived on, resurrected in the late 1820s by South Carolina’s John C. Calhoun, the spiritual father of the Confederacy. Ultimately, nullification was buried at Appomattox Courthouse in 1865 at the end of the Civil War.
Or so we thought.
Now the poles have reversed. Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III is defending federal authority and Jerry Brown is arguing for states rights.
California has gone so far beyond the buoy we now find ourselves shielding illegal immigrants who have been convicted of serious, even violent, felonies unrelated to their immigration status. SB 54 not only prohibits California’s jails and prisons from cooperating with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the law makes it a crime for business owners to cooperate with the feds, subjecting the law-abiding to $10,000 fines!
The mayor of Oakland, Libby Schaaf, went so far as to send out social media warnings about impending ICE raids targeting a specific list of 1,000 felons who had been released back on to the streets. One of those criminals has been convicted of drugging and sodomizing his victim. Exactly who are we protecting?
Admittedly, I am a nut on this subject. I don’t understand why anyone supports open borders. And make no mistake, California’s leadership — including the city and county of Los Angeles — supports open borders.
“A refusal to apprehend and deport those, especially the criminal element,” Sessions told the peace officers in Sacramento, “effectively rejects all immigration law and creates an open-borders system. Open borders is a radical, irrational idea that cannot be accepted.”
The attorney general received a standing ovation from the law enforcement professionals tasked with keeping us safe.
“The United States of America is not ‘an idea;’ it is a secular nationstate with a Constitution, laws and borders, all of which are designed to protect our nation’s interests. Surely, we should be able to agree on this much,” implored the attorney general.
But we don’t agree.
Brown responded with a Trump-like Twitter tantrum accusing Sessions of “going to war” against California and unleashing a “reign of terror.” This from the guy who pushed through Propositions 47 and 57, two jailemptying ballot measures that have, in fact, unleashed a reign of terror in our towns and cities. On Brown’s watch, “hate crimes,” “solicitation of murder,” “rape!” — even “assault with a deadly weapon on a police officer” — have been reclassified as “nonviolent” offenses.
But, according to Brown, Jeff Sessions is the problem. Open borders help nobody. They contribute to a rise in poverty — and California is the poverty capital of the United States, not Jeff Sessions’ native state of Alabama. Open borders have increased crime. I’m sorry if this makes you uncomfortable. Get over it. Our sanctuary policies have contributed to the lowincome housing crisis, budget deficits, a drop in academic performance and a litany of other social ills.
By securing our borders, we could once again establish a rational immigration system that honors the spirit of Emma Lazarus without imposing chaos on the social order and pit the poor against the poorer.
But immigration aside, the path California has chosen to take threatens our country in a more profound way — actual disunion.
“If we don’t get this right, we’ll be causing damage to our republic beyond this specific event,” Sessions told me. If California’s sanctuary laws are upheld, the glue that holds America together will dissolve. “Can Texas bar OSHA officers from inspecting work sites or ban environmental protections?” asked Sessions.
If so, then why can’t L.A. County reject state laws? Why can’t Pasadena or Long Beach nullify county law? For that matter, why can’t you and I reject all the laws we don’t agree with?
The United States accepts 1.1 million legal immigrants every year. We are, by far, the most welcoming people on Earth. We are also a nation of laws. If California doesn’t like our immigration policies, we can fight to change them, but we don’t get a veto over the other 49 states.
What California is doing is fundamentally un-American.
Doug McIntyre’s column appears Sundays. Hear him weekdays from 5-10 a.m. on KABC-AM (790). He can be reached at: Doug@KABC.com.
