When politicians start putting their “woke” social justice initiatives ahead of the law and keeping people safe, we have an existential problem.
BOSTON, MA- Tom Joyce of the New Boston Post reported that “Safe Communities Act” proponents made their case for more than seven hours at Gardner Auditorium in the State House on Friday as to why the state should not respect federal immigration law.
This measure had been previously rejected by Massachusetts lawmakers.
The bill aims to prevent Massachusetts law enforcement and court personnel from asking people about their immigration status; limit communication with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, including not letting the federal agency know when people would be released from custody; and end so-called 287g agreements that let Massachusetts jails and prisons house federal immigration detainees.
Opponents of the law rightfully argue that disregarding Federal immigration laws will make communities less safe.
During this hearing at Gardner Auditorium, proponents of measure (Massachusetts Senate Bill 1401) got the overwhelming majority of speaking time.
They included people from organizations such as the ACLU-Massachusetts, Jewish Community Relations Council Boston, Massachusetts Teachers Association, the pro-immigrant MIRA Coalition, the Massachusetts Business Immigrants Coalition, and the Somerville Police Department, among others.
“No human being is illegal,” said state Representative Liz Miranda (D-Boston), a supporter of the bill, during testimony Friday, January 24 before the Joint Committee on Public Safety and Homeland Security of the Massachusetts Legislature.
Miranda said the bill would encourage illegal immigrants to report crimes if they were the victims of them.
“We cannot let our neighbors live in fear,” she said.
It was a sentiment echoed by Massachusetts Teachers Association president Merrie Najimi who complained of having to hear testimony from “billionaire-funded outsiders” and people who were “fearmongering.”
“I want you to really take seriously the note that no human being is illegal, and immigrants do not have fundamental criminal character traits tied to who they are as immigrants,” she said. “It’s through love and not hate that we protect our Commonwealth, and the Safe Communities Act does that.”
Somerville Mayor Joe Curtatone testified alongside his city’s chief of police, David Fallon, that the bill promotes public safety.
“No human is illegal.”
No one is saying that any human IS illegal, but common sense and logic chooses to recognize that illegal immigrants have broken Federal laws by coming to our country without the proper process and choose to remain in place, disregarding the law.
This common mantra from the liberal left seems to motivate those who think with their hearts instead of their brains.
Opponents of the bill included Maureen Maloney, vice president of Advocates for Victims of Illegal Alien Crime, whose son Matthew Denice, 23, was killed in 2011 by an illegal immigrant driving drunk.
“Our family as we knew it was destroyed and we are now permanently separated,” she said. “My son is dead because of the lax immigration laws and the fact that legislators and judges have put illegal aliens ahead of the protection of Americans.”
Along similar lines, Donald Rosenberg, president of Advocates for Victims of Illegal Alien Crime, said:
“The reality for any politician who supports sanctuary policy is they are willing to sacrifice American, legal immigrant, and even illegal immigrant lives to advance their political careers or are just ignorant of the facts.”
Jessica Vaughan, director of policies for the Center for Immigration Studies, said Congress properly has authority over immigration policy, not state legislatures.
“These bills attempt to substitute the opinion of a group of state lawmakers for the federal immigration enforcement system stipulated in our Constitution, enacted by the U.S. Congress, and enforced by our federal agencies,” she said.
“These bills would decree that only some of the so-called ‘worst of the worst’ non-citizen offenders can be subject to deportation – and only if they can be caught after local officials let them back on the streets.
Supporters of these bills want to deny federal immigration officers the ability to do their job – a job that contributes enormously to public safety, and a job that is necessary to preserve the integrity of our legal immigration system,” she added.
Unhappy with Vaughan’s testimony, committee co-chairman Hank Naughton (D-Worcester) attempted to discredit her by pointing out that the Southern Poverty Law Center has designated the Center for Immigration Studies as a hate group.
Conservatives in recent years have countered that the Southern Poverty Law Center is left wing and anti-Christian, and itself a hate group.
The 2018 Massachusetts state budget bill initially contained a provision that would make it a sanctuary state, but it was removed before the bill passed. Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker has previously stated that he would veto a Sanctuary State bill if it came to his desk.
Earlier this week, we reported on how the Los Angeles Times has come out against sanctuary cities – but for gun owners, not illegal immigrants.
In a startling development, the left-leaning Los Angeles Times has reversed course, coming out against sanctuary cities. Oh wait…they’re against SECOND AMENDMENT sanctuaries. Got it.
While the Los Angeles Times should probably be more concerned about what a mess the state of California is, and cities such as San Francisco and Los Angeles are specifically, they are up in arms about the sanctuary movement in Virginia.
We have been writing for a while now about the run on the Constitution and in particular the Second Amendment by the Democrat-controlled Virginia legislature.
The Michael Bloomberg funded Democrats in the state have gone off the rails with gun control measures ranging from universal background checks to a ban on scary-looking “assault weapons” to a “red flag” weapon seizure law that violates due process.
This past Monday, approximately 22,000 patriots showed up in Richmond to protest against the new gun control measures.
Unlike marches and protests carried out by leftists for things such as “climate change”, women’s rights and criminal justice “reform”, there was no violence, no buildings burned, no cars tipped over, no police officers assaulted, and they even picked up all their trash afterward.
Despite that, a writer from GQ compared some of the protesters to “Nazis.” Of course.
Of course, all of that matters not at all to those on the left who want to gut the Constitution in favor of some kind of leftist utopia.
These are the same people who tell us that we need to “believe in science” when it comes to so-called “climate change” but not when it comes to gender.
They are the people who protest Chick fil A because the owner dared express his personal opinion, but think men belong in the same bathrooms as our daughters.
They believe in creating sanctuaries for illegal aliens who break our laws but excoriate law enforcement for doing their job.
Enter the LA Times. They are not happy that towns, cities and counties in Virginia have “stolen” the sanctuary concept, but instead of applying the concept to immigration dare apply it to the Second Amendment.
In a post on Twitter, L.A. Times Opinion, in partially citing an editorial says, “If local jurisdictions dislike state laws, there are democratic mechanisms for changing them.
Laws that have been duly passed and enacted should be followed what’s what the rule of law means,” writes the editorial board. We don’t even know how to deal with the abject hypocrisy of that statement.
"If local jurisdictions dislike state laws, there are democratic mechanisms for changing them. Laws that have been duly passed and enacted should be followed; that’s what the rule of law means," writes the editorial board.https://t.co/vBSshg1v71
— L.A. Times Opinion (@latimesopinion) January 20, 2020
The editorial goes on:
“The simple fact is: Local governments cannot decide willy-nilly that if they don’t like a state law, they don’t have to enforce it. While states may have powers unique from the federal government’s, no such duality exists at the municipal level.”
“The 2nd Amendment sanctuary movement adopted its name as an obvious play on the immigration sanctuary movement. But those movements are related in name only, and it is possible to support the latter without supporting the former.
Immigration codes, after all, are part of federal civil law, not criminal law, and local jurisdictions have the right to decide that they don’t want to use local tax dollars to enforce federal civil codes. They may not impede the federal government’s ability to enforce its immigration codes, but they don’t have to cooperate”
Read that last sentence again.
“They may not impede the federal government’s ability to enforce its immigration codes, but they don’t have to cooperate.”
Of course, the opposite of cooperate is uncooperative.
Impede- to interfere with or slow the progress of
Uncooperative- unwillingness or inability to work with others
Not sure about most of you all, but it seems like “impede” and “uncooperative” are kind of the same thing.
If nothing else, the editorial board of the LA Times shows mind-numbing hypocrisy.
They have previously had opinion pieces titled “Don’t fulfill Trump’s false depiction of California as a ‘sanctuary state’ for undocumented immigrants” and “Why sanctuary cities must exist,” in which they gushed about the necessity for local law enforcement to decline to honor detainers issued by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials.
Acting Deputy Homeland Security Secretary Ken Cuccinelli called out the hypocrisy of the LA Times editorial board in a tweet:
“If you’re starved for hypocrisy, the LA Times should fill you up w/this one: Editorial: 2nd Amendment sanctuaries are acts of faithlessness in government.”
You really gotta love liberals. Trying to create an argument that one kind of sanctuary policy that has no constitutional basis (immigration) versus one that HAS a constitutional basis (2nd Amendment) possess functional differences. Our opinion is that there is a difference, however not in the way that the LA Times claims.
The right to keep and bear arms is a constitutionally protected right.
“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
Nowhere in the Constitution is there a “right” to enter the United States illegally and be able to remain here. Second Amendment sanctuaries in Virginia at least have the appearance of being protected under the Constitution of the United States.
It is mind-blowing that the Times can support immigration sanctuaries while condemning Second Amendment sanctuaries. What is even more mind-blowing is the unmitigated gall to make the statement that some laws are okay to ignore but others are not. Typical for leftists, the only laws worth enforcing are the ones that they agree with.
The ones they disagree with are fine to be ignored.
“Local governments cannot decide willy-nilly” which laws they choose to enforce.”
The Times said it. But they only believe it if it meets their particular political agenda. Hypocrites.
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