Los Angeles Looks To Further Decriminalize Street Vending To Shield Illegal Aliens From ICE

It’s an interesting prospect. Leftists have long pushed to require licenses for everything, and like to punish those without. Some make sense, others don’t. If you want to sell cars, you need a license. You don’t do anything for it, just pay a fee. Do not have to pass a test or demonstrate anything. Anyhow, if you want to do it, they want to require a license for it. This is how we end up with kids having their lemonade stands shut down by law enforcement. But, one would think that requiring a license for street vendors, at least those selling food, would be a good idea, right? We can agree that there should be some standards when we’re talking about something that can make people sick and even kill them, right?

(The Root) Walk outside a Hollywood, Calif., nightclub on any given night of the week and you are bound to come across a street vendor selling delicious-smelling hot dogs and sausages smothered in peppers and onions. The familiar tinkling of a bell attached to the end of a cart as it makes its way down your street lets you know the elote man is on the block. The kind hombre in the cowboy hat walking past the baseball diamonds in the park, pushing a freezer chest on wheels, will happily sell you your favorite ice cream treat for no more than a dollar or two.

Street vendors are a common sight in Los Angeles. For many immigrants, it is a way to make an honest living, but it also exposes them to the risks of being arrested and possibly detained and deported by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. While the city decriminalized street vending on sidewalks in February 2017, that change did not apply to vendors who operate in the city’s parks. A motion filed by City Council members on Tuesday seeks to rectify that, NBC reports.

Council members Jose Huizar and Mitch O’Farrell introduced the motion that would direct city staff to remove criminal misdemeanor charges for vending in parks and recommend other penalties that would compel compliance without exposing vendors to the threat of a criminal penalty.

What’s the point of this?

“In February, the Los Angeles City Council voted to decriminalize street vending in order to keep our mostly immigrant vendors out of the overreaching aggressive arms of our federal government looking to target otherwise law-abiding immigrants for deportation,” Huizar told NBC. “This motion and another I co-introduced last week help us maintain a consistent stance against the federal government and, more importantly, in support of our immigrant community.”

That’s right, it’s to shield illegal aliens from coming to the attention of Immigration and Customs Enforcement when they are arrested or enter the legal justice system in some method. Thankfully, zoot suits are still illegal in Los Angeles city.