Immigration Cops: California Sanctuary Law Won’t Stop Us

President Donald Trump’s acting chief of the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) stated on Friday that his law enforcement agents had orders to arrest illegal aliens in California’s neighborhoods and worksites despite newly signed sanctuary city legislation at the state level.

Acting ICE Director Thomas Homan said in his press statement that those illegal aliens arrested would also likely be placed in federal detention centers outside of the Californian jurisdiction.

Homan’s comments came within 24-hours of California’s Gov. Jerry Brown, a far-left Democrat, signing the state Senate bill SB54, a/k/a sanctuary state legislation.

Governor Jerry Brown’s decision to sign SB54 and make California a sanctuary state for illegal aliens – including those who have committed crimes – will undermine public safety and hinder ICE from performing its federally mandated mission. The governor is simply wrong when he claims otherwise, according to Homan.

Thomas Homan is from northern New York state where he onced served as a police officer in Carthage, NY before he enlisted with — what was then called — the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service in 1986.

He originally served as a border patrol agent, an immigration investigator, and a supervisory special agent before being named to the executive associate director position. In 2015, he was given a Presidential Rank Award as a Distinguished Executive in President Barack Obama’s administration. A Washington Post article at the time stated, “Thomas Homan deports people. And he’s really good at it.”

While Homan assures the American people that no sanctuary city policy will prevent his agents from protecting life and property from criminal acts committed by illegal aliens, he does acknowledge that SB54 will negatively impact ICE operations in California. He believes that the policy in Californian will hamper cooperation and communication with local and state law enforcement partners by “voiding the delegated authority that the Orange County Sheriff’s Office has under the 287g program, and prohibiting local law enforcement from contracting with the federal government to house detainees.”

“ICE will have no choice but to conduct at-large arrests in local neighborhoods and at worksites, which will inevitably result in additional collateral arrests, instead of focusing on arrests at jails and prisons where transfers are safer for ICE officers and the community. ICE will also likely have to detain individuals arrested in California in detention facilities outside of the state, far from any family they may have in California,” Homan said.

Critics of Gov. Brown’s politically-motivated immigration policy allege that SB54 helps to actually protect removable criminal aliens from immigration enforcement officers and creates yet another magnet for more illegal immigration, all at the expense of the safety and security of the very people it purports to protect.

“Despite the severe challenges that this law creates for ICE, we remain committed to our public safety mission and we will continue to do our sworn duty to seek out dangerous criminal aliens and other immigration violators. ICE seeks straightforward cooperation with all sheriffs and local elected officials. This misguided legislation will severely undermine those efforts,” Homan stated.