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Moments ago, Senate Minority Leader Brian W. Jones (R-San Diego) issued the following statement in response to the immigration enforcement in Los Angeles:
“California Republicans had a solution in our Senate Bill 554, but the ‘Sanctuary City’ crowd brought this on themselves by prohibiting state and local law enforcement from cooperating with the Feds to identify violent illegal immigrants in prisons and jails.
“Now the Feds have to run broader raids, like what we’re seeing in LA, which sweep up way more people. This whole thing was easily preventable,” said Leader Jones.
In April, Democrats on the Senate Public Safety Committee blocked Senate Bill 554, the Safety Before Criminal Sanctuary Act, authored by Leader Jones.
SB 554 would have required local law enforcement to cooperate with federal immigration authorities for illegal immigrants convicted of serious and violent felonies including rape, child molestation, armed robbery, DUIs, human trafficking, and drug trafficking.
Current law simply allows – but does not require – local law enforcement to cooperate with federal immigration authorities if they reach out seeking the transfer of individuals convicted of certain serious crimes. When law enforcement chooses not to cooperate, federal agents are often forced to conduct dangerous at-large raids in neighborhoods instead of making arrests safely in jails.
These raids can then lead to an increase in "collateral arrests,” when additional illegal immigrants are unintentionally swept up in enforcement actions because violent offenders were not turned over in the first place.