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November 23, 2024

OPINION by T. KEITH GURNEE

After Donald trump’s stunning victory, California Democrats have come unhinged.

Consider the optics of the Democrats in announcing their resistance against Trump’s vow to undo our nation’s sanctuary policies. California appears to be doubling down in defending those policies in the face of criminal illegal immigrants who have been raping and murdering innocent girls and women across our country.

Events and Optics

Just this week, the Venezuelan immigrant who raped and murdered 22-year-old nursing student Laken Riley on the campus of the University of Georgia was found guilty by a judge of all 10 charges against him and was sentenced to life in prison. With immigrant crime exploding throughout the nation due to Joe Biden’s open border and Gavin Newsom’s sanctuary policies, California continues to welcome illegal immigrants into our state. Biden is nothing less than complicit in the demise of Laken Riley and the many other women and girls who have become victims of illegal immigrant violence.

Remarkably, that same day, the LA Times reported that the LA City Council voted unanimously to adopt an ordinance endorsing its status as a sanctuary city. Mayor Karen Bass robotically vowed to sign it into law. Does this city really want to roll out the welcome mat to deaths like Laken Riley’s? Does it really want to double down in inviting immigrant criminal activity, sex trafficking, sexual assaults, murder, and the importation of deadly fentanyl into their fair city? It appears so.

The contrasting optics of both of these events happening at the same time are deeply disturbing. After four years of Biden’s open borders. It compels us to fundamentally reexamine what we should be doing with sanctuary policies and their consequences.

What’s Next?

Interestingly enough, another LA Times article appeared addressing  “Golden State Democrats Take Hard Looks in the Mirror.” After the failures of a number of ballot measures supported by Democrats and the defeats of Dist. Atty. George Gascon and other local liberal officials in California, the Times felt that Democrats should focus on reevaluating their positions.

But Gov. Gavin Newsom isn’t “looking in the mirror.” Almost immediately after the election, Newsom announced that he would take on the mantle of “leading the resistance against Trumpism,” before he rushed off to Washington DC to insert himself into the debate over the future of Democratic leadership and the presidential elections in 2028. Gavin, your ambition is showing!

If Newsom is looking in the mirror, it’s only to make sure his hair is perfectly coiffed. After all, Newsom was the father of the sanctuary city movement in California when he declared San Francisco as one. Shortly thereafter in 2015, an illegal five-time deportee shot and killed Kate Steinle, a graduate of Cal Poly, on Pier 14 on the San Francisco Embarcadero. He’s not about to let go of the movement that has metastasized throughout the nation.

What Should be the Doing With Sanctuary Policies?

Donald Trump has made it clear that he is going to take on sanctuary states and cities when he is sworn in as President. Despite the abject resistance of California, New York, Massachusetts, Illinois, and Colorado and that of such sanctuary cities like San Francisco, Denver, Chicago, and New York City, how is he going to do it?

As sanctuary cities gird their loins for their legal and political fight with the federal government, Trump needs to make a paradigm shift to get around those attacks. With DOGE, he just might have the solution.

By forming the DOGE, the new Department of Government Efficiency headed by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, he has done just that. Creating such an agency run by such high-quality leaders, Trump could develop the tools that he needs. In seeking to reorganize the federal government and to eliminate government waste, DOGE using the federal purse strings could hold the key in addressing the elimination of sanctuary states and cities.

How? By withholding federal funds and subventions from those states and cities that persist in keeping their sanctuary policies. Cutting or eliminating the outflow of federal funds to states like California would be huge. Withholding federal funding for California’s high-speed rail (the bullet train to nowhere), other transportation projects, or federal grants for housing or just about everything for California’s cities who insist on maintaining their sanctuary status would surely get their attention while saving the federal government billions, if not trillions, of dollars.

Taking action against those cities and states should focus upon the priority of deporting those immigrants with criminal records, the massive numbers of got-aways, and those who have crossed our borders illegally who have no intent of becoming naturalized citizens.

When it comes to California, withholding federal funding from this cash-strapped state and our cities until they repeal their sanctuary status would provide a powerful incentive to disengage from the sanctuary city movement and its negative impacts on the lives of Californians.

Let’s see what happens after Donald Trump is sworn in on Jan. 20, 2025 as the 47th President of the United States.