"Sanctuary City Charade" by Daniel Guss
As predicted, Karen Bass, LA City Council star as P.T. Barnum with their vacuous “Sanctuary City” public relations stunt yesterday. Did anyone read the fine print?
Twenty-four hours ago, this column easily foreshadowed that the “Sanctuary City” item on yesterday’s LA City Council agenda was a publicity stunt in which our posturing politicians would mislead the public (including LA’s un-doubting news media) and ironically draw enhanced scrutiny from President-elect Donald Trump’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Mission accomplished.
It is a familiar pattern in which our politicians justify staying in elected office by creating the illusion of leadership without ever improving, let alone solving, real life problems.
I intentionally tipped my hand yesterday to see whether anyone actually read the letter that LA City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto’s office sent — all two pages of it — to City Council along with its draft ordinance about banning the use of city assets and personnel when ICE soon floods the area with federal agents to enforce its deportation policies.
I quote, adding capitalization for emphasis:
“Finally, the draft ordinance recognizes that, by terms of the Charter, NOT ALL CITY DEPARTMENTS WOULD BE BOUND BY ITS PROHIBITIONS. For the City departments that are exempt from those prohibitions, the draft ordinance, as a statement of City Council policy, strongly encourages those departments to adopt policies consonant with the provisions contained in the draft.”
TRANSLATION: Fuck it. Say what you have to say, but don’t jeopardize Homeland Security money and training. This is just politics, hook, line and stinker. Give the LA Times what it wants, they repeatedly endorse all of us and you give everyone raises City Hall can’t afford. Nobody gets fired, ever. Baba Booey.
SHOCKER! One of the exempt agencies is the LAPD.
Shortly after the Hamas terror attack on Israel, I had a brief dialogue with then-LAPD Chief Michel Moore, because it was abundantly clear to me that a city which can’t control copper theft, street takeovers and mass shoplifting incidents is woefully unprepared for terrorism.
Moore was politely dismissive of the issues I raised and, in his reply, he cc’d his top counter-terrorism brass, some of whom are paper tigers in LA’s arguably most corrupt agency. More on that another day so I can ask this abundantly obvious question:
How do you think the LAPD pays for its counter-terrorism training, strategy and quasi-military equipment?
Taco vendor permit fees?
No, it’s paid for with tens of millions of dollars that comes with requirements from the Department of Homeland Security, which these very same posturing politicians will never jeopardize.
In fact, the LAPD and ICE work closely every day to “investigate state and federal criminal offenses such as narcotics trafficking, intellectual property theft, human trafficking, child exploitation, and terrorism.”
But even if the LAPD were to adopt a defiant position toward ICE, it would be futile.
In a word, fingerprints.
When the LAPD or other law enforcement agencies arrest someone, their fingerprints are electronically transmitted to the FBI in order to confirm their identity and criminal history. The Department of Homeland Security and ICE have real-time access to this activity and know the identity of absolutely everyone in LAPD custody, 24/7. They instantly know whether the person is an American citizen or if they are here lawfully because they have databases on everyone with a Social Security number, driver’s license, et al.
Reverse engineer that simple math and they also know if someone is here unlawfully.
The feds have indicated that thousands of ICE agents who had been assigned to desk duty during the Biden-Harris border crisis will be reassigned to sanctuary cities like Los Angeles, virtually across the street from each of its jails to get everyone it seeks upon their release.
Yesterday’s charade was further exploited by Councilmember Bob Blumenfield, who falsely claimed that “there are no more calls” in queue for public comment for the meeting, implying that anyone who wanted to be heard had been. He was non-responsive when I asked him about it.
And let’s close with the biggest lie of them all.
The term Sanctuary City isn’t defined under federal, state or local law. It’s based solely on perception and can and will be conveniently twisted by politicians, government agencies, the news media and the public to suit their individual purposes.
Sorry / Not Sorry for exposing City Hall’s convenient, comfy narrative.
(Daniel Guss, MBA, won the LA Press Club’s “Online Journalist of the Year” and “Best Activism Journalism” awards in June ‘23. In June ‘24, he won its “Best Commentary, Non-Political” award. He has contributed to CityWatchLA, KFI AM-640, iHeartMedia, 790-KABC, Cumulus Media, KCRW 89.9 FM, KRLA 870 AM, Huffington Post, Los Angeles Daily News, Los Angeles Magazine, Movieline Magazine, Emmy Magazine, Los Angeles Business Journal, Pasadena Star-News, Los Angeles Downtown News and the Los Angeles Times in its sports, opinion, entertainment and Sunday Magazine sections among other publishers.)