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President Trump’s executive order also restarts the
“Secure Communities” law enforcement program
that was discontinued in 2014.
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SANCTUARY CITIES
Trump’s directives Wednesday also set in motion his well-publicized wall on the U.S. southern border and reinstitutes the controversial deportation program discontinued in 2014 called “Secure Communities.”
“The American people are no longer going to have to be forced to subsidize this disregard for our laws,” said White House spokesman Sean Spicer.
Rep. Barbara Lee, who represents all three cities and has been a strong voice in opposition to Trump and his policies, labeled his signature campaign promise as a “Wall of Hate.”
Raiding immigrant communities & building a #WallOfHate – this isn’t who we are. We will #resist these xenophobic, anti-immigrant policies.— Rep. Barbara Lee (@RepBarbaraLee) January 25, 2017
If the threat of losing federal dollars comes to pass, Oakland will find itself with a potentially debilitating $130 million hole in its already tight city budget. Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf said, “The Bay Area stands united against this White House’s morally bankrupt policies that would divide familie, turn our nation’s back on refugees in need, and potentially thwart the efforts of nearly one million productive young people who are on a legal path to citizenship.”
The pulling of federal funding in Oakland, added Schaaf, will harm education and law enforcement in the city. “We will not allow this president to play politics with our safety and security.”
Berkeley would face a loss of more than $11 million in federal dollars. Shortly after news of the executive order broke, Berkeley Mayor Jesse Arreguin pushed back, tweeting, “We won’t be intimidated by threats to cut funding to cities that believe in the fundamental notion that no person is illegal.”
We won’t be intimidated by threats to cut funding to cities that believe in the fundamental notion that no person is illegal.— Jesse Arreguin (@JesseArreguin) January 25, 2017
Alameda’s exposure is significantly less than Oakland and Berkeley. The island receives just $2.5 million in federal grants, according a city audit last completed in 2015. Alameda elected officials sought to fast track it move toward becoming a sanctuary city to just before Trump’s swearing-in last Friday.
“We did the right thing. Doing the right thing isn’t always free,” said Alameda Councilmember Jim Oddie, who led the push for sanctuary city status.
Oddie, however, believes Trump’s threat of stripping sanctuary cities of federal funding may ultimately mirror events that followed President Obama’s executive order in 2014 granting temporary citizenship to up to five million undocumented immigrants. The order was later litigated and blocked by the U.S. Supreme Court last June.
NOTE: This article was updated to included Mayor Schaaf’s comments.
By MW:
As more and more comes out in regard to how Oakland city employees intentionally ignored even the very most blatant and flagrant building, safety, fire, and health code violations at the Ghost Ship warehouse – AND IN FACT THEY EVEN DID SO, AND REPEATEDLY, FOR YEARS – and that situation led to thirty-six people dying in the resulting fire, Oakland will be in a situation in which the lawsuits against it for wrongful death will be in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
And when that happens, Oakland's city officials will be down on their hands and knees begging Trump for more money.
So let's take bets on how long the demagogue politicians, but who, and through such actions as their favoring sanctuary ordinances, pretend to be great liberals and wonderful humanitarians, continue standing on their make believe “principles.”
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By MW:
Related to last night's riots at the Berserkely campus of UC, Trump should take away federal funds that not only go to such sanctuary cities as Berserkeley itself, but also centers for lies, garbage, nonsense, and indoctrination, but which pretend to be dedicated to real education, that actually are largely in the business of producing politically correct thugs, parasites, and “sophisticated,” fancy talking, and “highly educated” sub mental retards who are far too stupid to ever understand the First Amendment.
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It's time for the rule of law. When Cities like Oakland and LA act in defiance of the law they will be punished. I would like to see our elected officials prosecuted for not following the law. There are consequences for their actions. If they feel strongly, great; let them go to jail. Shielding criminals is not something humane. No massive roundup planned, just getting rid of crime when the people are identified as having done something AND are here illegally. How do our elected look people in the eye that were (and are) people being victimized by someone who should not be here in the first place?
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By MW:
ALSO: Since the overwhelming majority of poor people, recent immigrants, and people on welfare vote for the Democratic Party, that is another major reason the top leadership of the DP is in favor of sanctuary ordinances.
In other words, and to put it as diplomatically as possible, for quite awhile now the top leadership of the DP, and although it pretends it is composed of great liberals and wonderful humanitarians, has actually been a big organized crime ring of weasels and scam artists.
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By MW:
While the overwhelming majority of the residents of at least most sanctuary cities are extremely strongly opposed to being sanctuary cities, however the big boys in City Hall, in other words the various mayors and members of the Boards of Supervisors and so forth, are determined to do the bidding of big businessmen, in other words the people who provide the large election campaign contributions and under the table bribes.
And the item biggest and wealthiest businessmen want more than anything else on earth is easy and unlimited access to plenty of extremely low cost AND ALSO NON-UNION undocumented alien slave labor.
However the scam artists and professional pathological liars, er, excuse me, I mean the great liberals and wonderful humanitarians, who comprise the top leadership of the Democratic Party are not going to admit the real reasons they are in favor of a sanctuary ordinance, so instead they pretend it is out of their supposed concern for the downtrodden and disenfranchised.
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By MW:
In regard to the subject of money, for starters I am going to write Donald Trump a letter demanding that he double the salaries and pensions of any and all members of the Oakland Fire Dept who were involved in the phony “inspections” that “proved” the Ghost Ship warehouse was in compliance with the health, safety, and fire codes.
In fact, it is quite likely that those “inspections” were not even done in a quick and cursory manner, but instead were “done” by the “inspectors” not even leaving the firehouse, but instead merely checking everything off without even leaving the firehouse or their office.
To make a bit of an analogy, let's assume that John Doe was given the job of inspecting equipment in buildings all over Alameda County. And let's assume that John Doe's office was located in Fremont. So on Tuesday morning he was assigned three pieces of equipment to inspect, an air compressor in Berkeley, a HVAC system in Emeryville, and a walk-inbox in Oakland.
However rather than leaving his office in Fremont, instead he just stayed in Fremont all day, and while remaining seated at his desk or table in Fremont, he just checked every single item off as having been supposedly inspected, and even though actually he never left his office in Fremont, EXCEPT TO TAKE LONG BREAKS AND A TWO HOUR LUNCH.
NOTE: I used to work in a maintenance department in which some of the employees used to perform “inspections” in that manner. One of the department's managers used to sarcastically refer to that system as “tabletop inspections.”
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