A long list of undesirables – elected, blind and otherwise

July 30, 2025

OPINION by ANDY CALDWELL

Do you remember in the 1977 film “Star Wars” when Obi-Wan Kenobi described the infamous saloon as a “wretched hive of scum and villainy”?

Is that not an apt description of the former convicts arrested at the Glass House pot farms in Carpinteria and Camarillo by Homeland Security to the dismay of local politicians and the media? If you missed the list of undesirables, they included people arrested for or convicted of rape, kidnapping, narcotics trafficking, battery, child endangerment, felony firearm possession, indecent exposure, assault with a deadly weapon and burglary.

Then, there were the unaccompanied minors that may have been trafficked.

The question our politicians and media pundits are avoiding at all costs: Aren’t these the type of people you would expect to find at an illegal pot-growing operation rather than one of the largest permitted operations in the state that also runs several of our local dispensaries?

The most preposterous and dangerous rhetoric I may have ever heard in a county supervisors’ hearing occurred while Santa Barbara County Supervisors Laura Capps, Roy Lee and Joan Hartmann were completely and unequivocally condemning Homeland Security for their investigations and actions the day of the enforcement action.

These supervisors would neither admit that Homeland Security is a bonafide federal law enforcement agency that has sole jurisdiction over immigration matters nor were they burdened by the fact that, as the Heritage Foundation reported, a study back in 2011 indicated that California’s brand of egregious sanctuary legislation explains how it’s possible for 250,000 illegal aliens to have a combined total of nearly 1.7 million arrests for three million offenses committed on U.S. soil! And that report is 14 years old.

What’s worse? Capps and Lee badgered Sheriff Bill Brown for not sending deputies to rescue the illegal aliens and protestors from ICE.

Watching the hearing gave one the impression that they would like our sheriff’s department to be transformed into some sort of militia unit to defend against the efforts of Homeland Security to arrest the illegal aliens and protect the protestors from the defensive measures employed by ICE. That is, these supervisors, along with Congressman Carbajal, were outraged that the feds showed up in force and with the gear necessary to defend themselves if violence broke out, which it did.

Watch and share this very short video that captures Lee and Capps berating and cajoling our sheriff who thankfully stood his ground making them both look like the fools they are.

 

Of course, what many people are upset about, while ignoring the presence of the incorrigibles and the unaccompanied minors, is the “otherwise” law-abiding illegal aliens that were caught up in the sweep as collateral damage, if you will.

My take on that is that the last thing the Trump administration is going to engage in is a catch-and-release operation. In other words, I don’t believe that Glasshouse would have been the subject of a search warrant for simply employing illegal aliens.

Unfortunately, however, for the “otherwise” law-abiding illegal aliens employed there, they were in the wrong place at the wrong time for an administration that is committed to enforcing the law as written until such a time as Congress can agree on some form of comprehensive immigration reform.

Regarding the cries for “due process” for illegal aliens, either our local leaders and the media are uninformed, or they are lying about the laws in place to deal with this situation.

As immigration expert Hans von Spakovsky reports for the Heritage Foundation, “Some critics of the Trump Administration’s enforcement of federal immigration law, including members of the public, the media, and Congress, have made misleading claims about the due process rights that apply in immigration proceedings. Those who claim that non-citizens, referred to in our nation’s immigration laws as aliens, are entitled to the full panoply of constitutional rights enjoyed by American citizens are simply wrong and fail to differentiate between criminal prosecutions and immigration proceedings, which are civil matters.”

That is, “due process” in this case simply requires a hearing before a federal immigration judge employed by the Department of Justice as to whether an alien has a legitimate claim and proof to obtain asylum or residency. That’s it!

Concerning immigration proceedings, some 1.4 million illegals have already received their final order to deport. Tom Homan thereby has indicated that “the priorities for removal will focus on public safety threats, national security threats and fugitives,” as well as those who “got due process at great taxpayer expense and the federal judge ordered them removed, but they didn’t leave, and they became a fugitive.”

I find it ironic that these same politicians who had no problem shutting down schools, churches, businesses, parks, beaches, hiking trails, and pretty much anything and everything else they could think of to save us from COVID, won’t lift a finger to save us from the hundreds of thousands of illegal alien criminals in this country who are committing heinous crimes against citizens and immigrants alike nor are they interested in protecting the “otherwise” law-abiding immigrants from the cartels who facilitated their passage across our border with Mexico.

Everyone knows that the coyotes raped a significant number of the women who crossed the border and forced many others into employment as drug mules or worse, but as far as our electeds and our local media is concerned, there is nothing to see here!

In conclusion, perhaps the protestors, our electeds, and local media should refrain from throwing rocks at federal agents who are doing their job and aim instead at the people working in glass houses?

Andy Caldwell is the executive director of COLAB in Santa Barbara County and host of The Andy Caldwell Radio Show, weekdays from 3-5 p.m. on  FM 98.5, FM 99.5, AM 1240, AM 1290 and FM 96.9.