Congressman Urges AG to Focus on Illegal Marijuana Industry in California Desert; 'National Security Threat'
(CNSNews.com) - Attorney General Merrick Garland told a California lawmaker on Tuesday that large, illegal, transnational marijuana-growing operations in the California desert "are certainly within our jurisdiction and within our scope of concern."
Rep. Mike Garcia (R-Calif.) issued a plea for help in dealing with what he called "a massive influx of an illegal marijuana industry" in the deserts north of Los Angeles:
Garcia said the problem is being "understated at local levels, at the state levels, and certainly not appreciated at the federal level."
"I've been able to take a tour with the local law enforcement agencies to see it from the air, and I can tell you firsthand that -- if you remember the first time you went flying over a small neighborhood your reaction was probably, wow, I can't believe there's this many pools in our neighborhoods. I have the same--I had the same reaction when I toured our Antelope Valley area with regards to these illegal pot operations," Garcia told Garland.
"There are literally hundreds, if not thousands, of these greenhouses being propped up in our deserts in areas where, frankly, vegetation should not be growing. It's difficult to farm out here," Garcia continued:
What's happening is, we have folks who are operating illegally on a black market who are stealing natural resources. They're stealing water. In many cases, the folks working these illegal pot operations are indentured servants, illegally here, trying to make ends meet and being taken advantage (of).
We have folks being--local citizens being intimidated by some of these transnational criminal organizations that are running these illegal marijuana operations. The magnitude of this problem is staggering, and I know that the federal government--I know that DOJ under DEA has pots of money that do go towards eradicating these illegal marijuana operations, but it is at a magnitude, like I said, that's beyond comprehension, I think. And I really do believe it's worth the DOJ's attention, not only at the federal level, but also in support of the local law enforcement agencies.
My question is, is what, in your opinion, can be done from a federal level to help prosecute folks who are growing marijuana illegally? There's a series of charges that have been deemed really misdemeanors, the distribution, the sale. The growing of marijuana in California is treated as misdemeanors, but the stealing of natural resources, in some cases the squatting on land, the intimidation against local residents for reporting...is rising to a level of felony behavior, and, frankly, it is a true security issue at the local level, but also national security.
What do we do at the federal level under your administration and your leadership to help us eradicate the illegal marijuana problem?
Garland said he's not "precisely familiar with the specifics," adding that DOJ's view on marijuana use is that "enforcement against use is not a good use of our resources. I understand that's not what you're talking about," Garland said.
"You're really talking about growing and manufacturing at a large scale...So to the extent you're asking, for example, about transnational operations of large amounts coming from Mexico or of transnational operators who are coming into the United States to do the growing, these are certainly within our jurisdiction and within our scope of concern."
Garcia told Garland he'd "love to host you out here" to see the "staggering" problem he's talking about.
"The local law enforcement agencies get about $19,000 per year from the federal government for over time to help fight this. They hit that cap, that $19,000 limit usually in June or July of each year and it's frankly, not enough," Garcia said.
"And like I said, this is--we've had seven dead bodies show up at these illegal growers here in Southern California just in the last few months. Would really appreciate hosting you out here and getting not only the DEA, but also ATF and FBI representatives to see firsthand what we're seeing on the ground here."
Later, in a second round of questioning, Garcia noted that the illegal operations he's talking about are not taxed or regulated, as California's legal cannabis industry is.
"These are, in Southern California, very large scale nurseries being put up in the middle of our desert. They are literally stealing water out of fire hydrants and out of California's aqueduct system. They are, in some cases, stealing land and squatting on this--this--these desert properties. And in many cases, over 90 percent of them using free labor in the form of indentured servants from people who are here illegally and don't have an ability to go to police, like--like most employees would have.
"So this is truly a threat. It's a national security threat. It's an international threat. It's a domestic threat. And I--and I--I would really welcome you to send a delegation out here to see it firsthand," Garcia repeated.
Garland said he would "speak to the DEA about this...and see what they know about the circumstances that you're describing.
"They certainly--the way you're describing them, of course, and plus, you've mentioned, I think, seven dead bodies being found. A combination of large scale illegal activity, violence, indentured servitude, none of those are things that we should be ignoring. So I will--I will be sure that the DEA looks into this."
California to Release Tens of Thousands More Violent Offenders Early
By Hans Bader | May 4, 2021 | 3:09pm EDT
California will grant early release to tens of thousands more violent, repeat felons over the next few years. California's governor issued an emergency declaration on Saturday to shorten their sentences.
"With little notice, California on Saturday is increasing early release credits for 76,000 inmates, including violent and repeat felons, as it further trims the population of what once was the nation’s largest state correctional system," Fox News reports.
As ABC News notes, "More than 63,000 inmates convicted of violent crimes will be eligible for good behavior credits that shorten their sentences by one-third instead of the one-fifth that had been in place since 2017. That includes nearly 20,000 inmates who are serving life sentences with the possibility of parole."
Early release will be available even to many inmates who behave badly in jail, because of how little is required to qualify for "good behavior credits." As Hot Air explains,
Prisoners currently serving in California’s work camps will immediately qualify for [an additional] month off of their sentences for every month they have served with “good behavior.” But as one law enforcement official pointed out, even the ones who fail to qualify due to “bad behavior” in any given month don’t really stay any longer. The month they lose can be restored in as little as 12 weeks and it usually is. So basically, everyone is getting “good behavior” credit every month now.
As Hot Air notes, "All of this is being done at a time when Los Angeles just released its statistics showing a 38% increase in homicides...and a similar surge in other violent crimes. San Francisco is experiencing a 'dramatic spike” in murders, along with surges in other crimes, including burglary."
These crime spikes are occurring as newly-elected progressive prosecutors refuse to seek enhanced sentences for repeat violent offenders, and refuse to seek life without parole for murderers (even serial killers), which they view as too harsh. These crime spikes aren't due to COVID-19 or the economy: the crime rate fell during the 2007-2009 recession, and in many other countries, crime rates actually went down during the COVID-19 pandemic. These crime spikes are happening due to soft-on-crime policies.
Now, California will make crime even worse, by releasing many repeat, violent offenders who are already in prison. That will increase the crime rate in two ways. First, it will give released offenders the opportunity to commit more crimes. Second, it will make it less costly for all would-be offenders to commit crimes, by reducing the sentences they serve for committing them.
Longer prison sentences cut the crime rate by making people think twice about committing violent crimes. A study of a California anti-crime law found that longer sentences had "a large deterrent effect" for crimes like willful homicide, rape, and robbery. After Virginia adopted longer prison sentences than neighboring Maryland, it ended up with a violent crime rate less than half of Maryland's.
Political elites like California's governor tend to be hostile to long prison sentences, because they can't understand why harsh penalties are needed to deter crimes. The political elites enjoy their lives immensely, and have a lot to lose from even a short prison sentence. California's progressive governor, Gavin Newsom, is a perfect example: He is "the living embodiment of privilege," because of his "wealth," social "class," privileged upbringing, and "good looks," notes the liberal Sacramento Bee.
To privileged people like Newsom, the criminal justice system looks harsher than it is. If you are well-to-do, and have a loving family, and lots of friends and fawning supporters, spending even a few days in jail away from them seems like a terrible punishment. So politicians and liberal judges often wrongly assume that even a short prison sentence is enough to deter crime. A happy Supreme Court justice who had an idyllic childhood and a wonderful life said that “every day in prison is much longer than any day you’ve ever spent.” That might have been true for him, but it definitely isn't true for many ordinary people. My wife, who grew up in the working class, would gladly trade many sad days in her life for a day in jail. So would I. As a black economist noted, poor people in a "high-crime neighborhood" would see things differently than the Supreme Court justice.
A short sentence isn't enough to deter some would-be criminals from committing crimes. Long sentences are needed because people in crime-prone demographics have less to lose from committing crimes, and thus can only be deterred by harsh penalties. Crime-prone people tend to have dead-end jobs or no job at all, come from a fatherless home, and have a dysfunctional family life.
Perhaps because political elites set the sentence ranges for crimes, criminals serve sentences that are shorter than most Americans expect. A liberal academic concedes that sentences are "surprisingly shorter than what people think." People he surveyed guessed that sentences for violent crime averaged "20" or "30" years. But the actual average sentence for a violent crime is four years.
Hans Bader practices law in Washington, D.C. After studying economics and history at the University of Virginia and law at Harvard, he practiced civil-rights, international-trade, and constitutional law. He also once worked in the Education Department.
The Bay Area has descended into a post-apocalyptic hell-scape
I was last in San Francisco about three years ago. Back then, the City was already degrading. In the years since then, with help from COVID, the Bay Area has degraded even further. This is what leftism does not communities.
The San Francisco Bay Area is meant to be a jewel-like place sitting on the blue-green Bay, surrounded by natural beauty, and crowned by a city once renowned for its natural and architectural beauty. I know those because I grew up in the City and spent most of my life living in or near it. There are few things more ravishing than to stand at the Marin headlines overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge, the San Francisco Bay, and the San Francisco skyline. If there’s no fog, it takes your breath away.
San Francisco used to be beautiful even on closer inspection. The Marina District offered beautiful 1930s-style Art Deco architecture, the lovely Presidio, and the vast green swathe of the Marina Green on the Bay. By the 1980s, Golden Gate Park had finally been repaired after the damage the Hippies caused. Fisherman’s Wharf, Chinatown, and North Beach were all touristy, but they were relatively clean, safe, and great fun. And San Francisco’s Union Square Area and theater district were fun, provided you didn’t wander too far west into the Tenderloin.
For a while, in the 1990s, thanks to the money the tech titans were pouring into the City, it got even more sparkling and lovely. But then, the hard-left policies took over. By then, I’d moved to Marin to raise my family, so I wasn’t paying attention to what was going on in San Francisco. Still, when I went there on errands, I noticed increasing numbers of homeless wherever I looked. They’d always the downtown area but now they were camping all over the place.
Even though I’d heard about the poop maps, San Francisco’s decay didn’t really strike me under three years ago, when a friend and I were in theater district one evening, walking back to our car. We were on the edge of the Tenderloin but heading to a street that used to be safe enough. In the 1990s, it might have a handful of homeless people, so we didn’t weren’t worried.
However, as we started down the street, my friend and I realized that it was wall-to-wall humanity: No tents; just dozens of people on both sides of the street, sitting and lying there in their vomit and excrement, with needles scattered about.
When I’m near the homeless, I don’t look at them because the paranoid ones get set off if you make eye contact. My friend, however, grew up in a small town and believes that you must recognize the homeless as human beings (which is very decent for the ones who aren’t paranoid).
For that reason, she was walking down the street saying, ‘Hello. Hi. Hello,” to everyone we passed. It was too late for me to shut her up or stop her, so I just tried for the powerful martial arts walk.
Eventually, we made it safely down the street, at which point my friend turned to me, clutched my arm, and said, “I’ve never been so frightened in my life.”
As I said, that was a few years ago. For more on San Francisco in that period, you can check out Tucker Carlson’s American Dystopia series, which you can find on this page.
Unbelievably, the Bay Area has gotten even worse. Yesterday, I got this email from a friend:
Went to chat with a friend of mine at my old workplace in Oakland this weekend. It’s in the railyards and there are large homeless encampments nearby.
OMG. Take whatever crazy Mad Max/RoboCop/district 9 dystopian movie you care to imagine. Then amplify the chaos about three times.
Fights. Fires. Cars & RVs burned out all over. It used to be a bit of “urban camping.” Some even used to have jobs. But not this current mob. I’ve seen pics of Brazilian and Indian shanty towns that are neat and civilized compared to this lot. Unbelievable.
So how did we get here? Rumor has it that this is the direct result of the state redirecting resources to illegal immigrants. Don’t know if it’s true. Whatever it is, it’s bad.
What a s**t show. My head is exploding. I’ve never seen anything close to this kind of squalor and dangerous degradation before.
As I said to my friend, three years ago, I walked through purgatory. Just three short years later, my friend found himself walking through Hell. This didn’t happen by accident. This is what Democrats do to the places under their control.
IMAGE: Homeless encampment in Oakland. YouTube screengrab.
4 Migrants Dead, 27 Injured as Smuggler’s Boat Flips off California Coast
Officials in San Diego, California, report at least four migrants died and as many as 27 were injured when a human smuggler’s overloaded vessel capsized off the coast.
San Diego Fire Department (SDFD) officials tweeted images from the scene where a 40′ cabin cruiser broke apart on the rocky coastline after overturning in the surf. A multi-agency response led to the rescue of dozens of smuggled migrants and the report of four deaths.
Photos taken at the scene of the boat incident today. 40’ cabin cruiser broke up along the rocks inside the surf line. The @SDLifeguards cliff rescue veh was used to extricate one patient up to street level. pic.twitter.com/lQ54UdBWBG
— SDFD (@SDFD) May 2, 2021
SDFD Lifeguard Services Lieutenant Rick Romero told reporters rescuers pulled seven people from the waves including the three migrants who died. The cold surf was running five to six feet on Sunday morning when the incident occurred, Fox News reported. The boat quickly broke apart as the waves smashed it into the rocky shore.
Homeland Security Investigations spokesman Jose Ysea confirmed the deaths of three people and that 27 were transported to local hospitals for “varying degrees of injuries.”
Agents responding to the failed human smuggling attempt included the SDFD, local lifeguards, the U.S. Coast Guard, Border Patrol, and other agencies, NPR reported.
Supervisory Border Patrol Agent Jeff Stephenson told the reporters, “Every indication from our perspective is that this was a smuggling vessel.” He said the boat was “severely overcrowded.”
The captain of the boat is under arrest under federal charges that appear to be related to human smuggling resulting in death to migrants.
Stephenson said the San Diego Sector experienced a growing number of maritime smuggling apprehensions this year. He said the boat appeared to be attempting to blend in with commercial vessels before capsizing onto the rocky coastline.
Officials have not yet released information on the migrants.
On Saturday, San Diego Sector Border Patrol officials announced a stepped-up operation to attempt to disrupt maritime smuggling incidents. The effort includes assets from CBP’s Air and Marine Operations and Border Patrol.
.@DHSgov partners are ramping up operations to disrupt maritime smuggling off the coast of San Diego this weekend. From Fri, 4/30 – Mon, 5/3, federal law enforcement partners will dedicate extra resources to coastal patrols. https://t.co/rPmTks5uf9 pic.twitter.com/tr5EWe0KN4
— CBP San Diego (@CBPSanDiego) May 1, 2021
Bob Price serves as associate editor and senior news contributor for the Breitbart Texas-Border team. He is an original member of the Breitbart Texas team. Price is a regular panelist on Fox 26 Houston’s Sunday-morning talk show, What’s Your Point? Follow him on Twitter @BobPriceBBTX, Parler @BobPrice, and Facebook.
Editor’s Note: This article has been updated after an additional death was reported from the smuggling attempt.
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