There was a little pre-Christmas murder and mayhem in the Golden State, courtesy of the late Gustavo Garcia: twice-deported illegal alien, violent criminal who once served time in a federal pen, robber, and murderer. Arrested for being high on drugs, he was held briefly in the Tulare County jail, but released within 10 hours, despite an ICE request that the violent hood be detained. No way, José: The local and the federal cops can’t talk or detain minus a federal judge’s order, thanks to California’s “Sanctuary State” law. So Garcia was sprung. A day later, three people, including Garcia, were dead — he was killed in a wrong-way, high-speed traffic accident following a carjacking, which itself followed a shootout with sheriffs — and seven people were hospitalized courtesy of his drug-infused crime spree. The dead and the injured, barely mentioned at the time, are already forgotten. The story doesn’t stand a chance against the tsunami of immigration groupthink.

Jack Fowler is the vice president of National Review . @jackfowler