Los Angeles County Goes Full Psycho on Immigration

Guest Post by Kevin Lynn from Progressives For Immigration Reform

The ruling elite of Los Angeles County and the City of Los Angeles seem to have lost their collective minds as they prepare for Trump’s Inauguration on January 20^th. Given the events of the past two weeks, one would almost come to envy the protections and privileges being foisted upon the County’s illegal immigrants.

At the December 6^th meeting, Los Angeles County Supervisor Hilda    Solis put forth a motion to protect illegal immigrants from deportation. In so doing she called for:

• The creation of an office of Immigrant Affairs to serve and protect all immigrants of Los Angeles County,

  

  Hilda Solis

• A strategy on how to handle a loss of federal dollars that could accompany the county’s refusal to implement federal immigration law,
• County and City school officials to meet with immigrant rights groups and determine the impact of complying with federal immigration mandates,
• The County’s Chief Information Officer to develop a plan to shield information from the federal government that could lead to the identification and deportation of illegal immigrants,
• The County Counsel to conduct an analysis of the president’s legal authority to modify current laws and limit federal enforcement actions as well a analyze the penalties that could be legally imposed on the County for not complying.

Regardless of where one stands on the immigration debate, two things come to mind when I read the transcript of the December 6^th Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors meeting. First, I’m no attorney. But isn’t what Supervisor Solis is proposing sound a lot like sedition? The definition of sedition is, “conduct or speech inciting people to rebel against the authority of a state or monarch.” Now whether you like the nation’s immigration laws or not, I think we can agree they exist for some very good reasons. For instance, they exist to keep criminals and undesirables out of the country; protect wages and benefits of wage earners from being driven down by hordes of people only too eager to work for less money; and preserve a quality of life based on the understanding that the ecosystem becomes ever more imperiled by an increasing population of first world consumers. The folks at the County of Los Angeles seem to believe you can have infinite growth on a finite planet.

The second thing that comes to mind is 30 years of essentially open borders caused by shoddy enforcement of our immigration laws is simply not working very well. 27% of California’s population is foreign born. That is roughly twice the countrywide percentage. Now, if immigration were working for the state, how is it that according to the Census Bureau, California has a higher poverty rate that any other state in the Union? Nearly a quarter of Californians live below the poverty line. Moreover, nearly one-third (1/3) of Latinos, the state’s largest ethnic group, live in poverty.

In 2014, Colin Cameron, Professor of Economics at UC-Davis, stated that “a significant portion of California’s high poverty reflects the state’s large number of immigrants.” He went on to state that “although many immigrants are well educated and high-paid, there are also many immigrants who are low skilled and have poor English skills.”

I could go into a lot more than just those two, but I have been making the case against unbridled immigration and its consequences for years. To learn more, I encourage the reader to view PFIR’s archive.

It would have been one thing if it were just a rogue Supervisor. But it was not. Supervisor Solis was joined in this madness by Supervisors Ridley-Thomas, Kuehl, and Hahn.   And of course the well-heeled non-profits of California (The Fifth Estate of government these days) were there in force to cheer on the dimwits. In fact, box lunches were arranged in the overflow rooms and parking paid for anyone willing to show up that morning. It wasn’t democracy in action on display. Rather, democracy in its death throws. For all intensive purposes the government of one of the country’s largest counties has been usurped by foreign nationals and non-government organizations.

The only supervisor to vote against the motion was Kathryn Barger. She stated, “we should not be at a local level, trying to figure out ways to circumvent the laws, and even undermine the constitution.”

But, not to be outdone, the City of Los Angeles found another creative way to express its contempt for the nation’s immigration laws and policies. According to an article in this week’s LA Times, the City will create a $10 million legal defense fund for immigrants facing deportation. The article stated the money for the fund would come from the City of Los Angeles, Los Angles County, and hereto unnamed “philanthropic groups.”

I would invite anyone who believes the City and County have the money for a venture like this to take a drive around the town. You will witness as I have on many an underpass, semi-permanent homeless camps that are fast becoming as ubiquitous as fast food restaurants. You will notice that it is not just that maintenance has been deferred – rather it has been eliminated.   A couple years ago the City embarked on a “30 year” plan to fix its potholes. So with luck, I’ll get to drive pothole free in Los Angeles some time around my 85^th birthday. I don’t know about you, but it makes me think the problems are growing and the money to fix them is shrinking. And I have yet to be convinced how adding more people to the mix is going to make things better.

Sadly, the response to dealing with immigration at the local level is not a fierce attempt to look reality in the face and engage in heroic action. Rather, it is simply to pile on more delusional thinking the likes of Supervisor Solis’ seriously flawed motion.

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