California boots federal ICE agents from state offices: Is the Golden State ground zero for the next civil war?

Since Donald J. Trump had the bad taste to actually win the November election, no state reacted more negatively to his victory than California.

Millions of angry Left-leaning progressives and Democrats filed into the streets of dozens of cities around the state, vowing to “fight” and pledging “war” against his administration.

The issue that most riled California’s far-Left Democratic lawmakers was immigration. Trump began his campaign with a vow to crack down on illegal border-crossings and those in the U.S. illegally, not through threats and intimidation but by simply enforcing the laws on the books. It was a cornerstone of his “American first” platform.

Now that his administration is making good on his promise, California is rebelling.

Last week Attorney General Jeff Sessions, in following up on earlier comments, once more threatened to withhold Justice Department grant money from “sanctuary” cities — those municipalities whose elected leaders have made it official policy to openly defy federal immigration laws by forbidding police and other state authorities from helping immigration agents identify and remove people in the country illegally.

As reported by Fox News this week, Sessions identified four cities that would be targeted initially, and two of them are in California: Stockton and San Bernardino, as well as Baltimore, Md. and Albuquerque, NM. The decision follows Sessions’ declaration that he will begin enforcing rules for cities participating in the Justice Department’s Public Safety Partnership program.

“By protecting criminals from immigration enforcement, cities and states with so-called ‘sanctuary’ policies make all of us less safe,” Sessions said in a statement. “We saw that just last week when an illegal alien who had been deported twenty times and was wanted by immigration authorities allegedly sexually assaulted an elderly woman in Portland, a city that refuses to cooperate with immigration enforcement.” (Related: Sessions has said that illegal alien criminals are drawn to sanctuary cities.)

Just one day after Sessions made the announcement, officials in California have ordered federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents out of state government buildings. As reported by the Sacramento Bee, the decision was apparently made by Julie Su, the state’s labor commissioner:

California’s top labor law enforcer wants federal immigration agents to stay away from offices where state investigators weigh claims about underpaid employees and workplace retaliation.

Labor Commissioner Julie Su last month directed her staff to turn away Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents unless the federal officers have warrants.

“The atmosphere of fear created by Trump and ICE’s expanded dragnet hurt all California workers,” said Assemblyman David Chiu, D-San Francisco, who has sponsored a bill that would restrict immigration enforcement at workplaces. “We have to do everything we can to fight back, and it’s great to see our labor commissioner taking a stand against the small minority of unscrupulous employers who are illegally retaliating against their employees.”

Never mind that the president and his law enforcement chiefs swore an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution as well as the nation’s laws; could the next civil conflict in America start in the state that most hated the fact that Trump, and not Hillary Clinton, is sitting in the White House?

It’s possible. The National Sentinel reported last month that a showdown is brewing between states and federal immigration enforcement agents, as the ICE chief prepares to send additional officers and deploy more resources to deep blue sanctuary cities in search of people in the U.S. illegally.

“You can like President Trump, not like him, like his policies, not like his policies, but one thing no one can argue with is the effect they’ve had,” ICE head Thomas D. Homan said in July, adding that Trump has “taken the handcuffs off of law enforcement.”

As cited by The National Sentinel, the Washington Examiner added:

A key target are the 300-plus sanctuary cities and counties that do not cooperate with ICE and ignore requests that they detail criminal illegals for ICE arrest and deportation proceedings.

Homan called that “ludicrous,” noting further: “In the America I grew up in, cities didn’t shield people who violated the law.”

California officials seem to think that just because they don’t like Trump, they have some exclusive license to pick and choose which federal laws to follow and which to ignore.

I think they’re about to find out how wrong they are.

It’s not clear what, if anything, the Trump administration plans do about California’s action banning ICE agents from some state offices. But it seems very clear the president won’t tolerate state authorities threatening or otherwise attempting to prevent federal immigration authorities from doing their jobs. Nor should he.

J.D. Heyes is a senior writer for NaturalNews.com and NewsTarget.com, as well as editor of The National Sentinel.

Sources include:

TheNationalSentinel.com

SacBee.com

Breitbart.com