Texas AG's Newest Bold Move Against Sanctuary Cities
The three-judge panel of the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Monday that parts of Senate Bill 4 can go into effect. The law allows for civil penalties of up to $25,000 per day on local jurisdictions that don't comply with federal immigration authorities and mandates that jail employees must also honor detainer requests from Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who has a knack for warning sanctuary cities that their days are numbered, applauded the court's decision.
“The 5th Circuit quickly confirmed what my office and I long maintained: Senate Bill 4 is a common sense measure that prevents governments in Texas from standing in the way of federal enforcement of immigration law,” Paxton said in a statement. “By enforcing the key provisions of SB 4, we will prevent dangerous criminals from being released back into our Texas communities.” (Texas Tribune)
Perhaps emboldened by the court's ruling, Paxton took the sanctuary city crackdown a bit further, informing Texans that they can submit sworn complaints to him about any local jurisdictions or officials they believe are harboring illegal immigrants.
Plaintiffs, including the cities of El Paso, El Cenizo, San Antonio, are pushing back against Paxton's claim to victory, arguing that the court maintained that local jurisdictions still have the authority to consider detainer requests individually.
Despite Monday's ruling, Senate Bill 4 has had a difficult route to passage. In August, U.S. District Judge Orlando Garcia blocked parts of the bill that allowed authorities to interrogate and detain those they believed to be illegal, arguing it would make Texas less safe because it would "erode public trust."
A separate panel will hear arguments for and against Senate Bill 4 in the first week of November.
Texas Border Agents Nab Gang
Members, Illegals Convicted of
Manslaughter, Sexual Assault
On Thursday, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) reported border agent have arrested five criminal illegal aliens trying to break back into the U.S. in Texas’ Rio Grande Sector.
After their arrests, the CBP discovered that the illegal aliens had already been convicted of crimes ranging from manslaughter to sexual assault – and three were members of dangerous gangs:
- A Mexican man who admitted to being member of the notoriously deadly Mara Salvatrucha gang, also known as MS-13.
- Two Salvadoran nationals (in separate arrests) who confirmed they were members of the 18th Street Gang, a violent Los Angeles street gang comprised primarily of illegal immigrants.
- A Brazilian woman previously arrested by the State Police in Burlington County, New Jersey for manslaughter and sentenced to four years in prison.
- Mexican national previously arrested by the New Haven, Connecticut Police Department for 4th degree sexual assault and sentenced to one year of prison confinement.
“All subjects are being processed accordingly,” the CBP reports.
While Brown has not yet signed the “Sanctuary State” bill, which would make California a sanctuary for criminal illegal aliens, it is unlikely that the latest alarming rise in violent crime would stop him.
Violent Crime Up Twice the National Average in Part of California
Violent crime is up across the country, but in some pockets of California, violent offenses — including murder, rape, robbery and assault — are up twice the national average, according to an FBI report released Monday.
While property crimes were down both nationally and in California, violent crimes spiked almost 4% in the Golden State, even though some in academia made a point to downplay the dramatic increase, according to the San Francisco Chronicle:
In California, 1,930 people were slain last year, an increase of 3.7 percent that came on the heels of a rise of 9.7 percent the previous year. But the 2016 rate — 4.9 victims for every 100,000 population — is relatively low compared with the rate 10 years earlier (6.9) and far lower than the rate in 1980 (14.4).“The overall picture is that homicide and violent crime rates went up dramatically in the 1970s and ’80s and ’90s, and then underwent a dramatic drop in the last 20 years, and leveled off,” said Robert Weisberg, a Stanford University criminal law professor and co-director of the school’s Criminal Justice Center.The FBI’s 2016 numbers, he said, “are not inconsistent with that.”Still, Bay Area law enforcement officials have expressed concern about the recent trend, opening up a debate over whether crime has gone up due to several factors, including the effort to reduce jail and prison populations and a struggle in some places to recruit and retain officers.
And Bay Area law enforcement officials are not the only ones wondering if recent prison and sentencing reforms have led to the dramatic increase.
Sacramento’s NBC affiliate (KCRA) reports that the
[v]iolent crime rate — which includes the number of homicides, rape, robbery and assault — was 716.3 per 100,000 people in 2016. Nationally, the violent crime rate was 386.3.
With violent crime in Sacramento rising at twice the national rate, there are additional questions about the impact of Gov. Jerry Brown’s signature prison reform, known as “AB109 Realignment.” That measure transferred many dangerous and violent felons from state to county supervision, and effectively commuted many sentences. It also put violent felons back on the streets and ended state parole supervision for those offenders altogether.
In February, California’s law enforcement community was rocked when a Whittier police officer, Keith Boyer, 53, was murdered by an unsupervised AB109 offender, who would have been behind bars had he been subject to state parole supervision.
While Brown has not yet signed the “Sanctuary State” bill, which would make California a sanctuary for criminal illegal aliens, it is unlikely that the latest alarming rise in violent crime would stop him.
Tim Donnelly is a former California State Assemblyman and Author, currently on a book tour for his new book: Patriot Not Politician: Win or Go Homeless. He also ran for governor in 2014.
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