Preserving the rule of law

Heather MacDonald writes at City Journal,

…California’s once-unrivalled status as the country’s most educated state has long since disintegrated under the waves of low-skilled, low-social-capital Mexican and Central American immigrants. Now, California’s K-12 system rivals Mississippi and Alabama as an education backwater. The state’s school-age population, now majority Hispanic, lacks competitive linguistic and math skills. (Of course, defense counsel conducted part of their post-verdict press conference in Spanish, oblivious to the symbolism.) California is becoming another Brazil, divided between fabulously wealthy elites hunkered down in their own coastal sanctuaries, and a poor, Third World population. Before the rest of the country ends up in the same situation, the immigration policies that gave rise to the Steinle homicide must change. Attorney General Jeff Sessions has been conducting a largely unheralded effort to end sanctuary jurisdictions, but the illegal-alien lawyer’s lobby has fought him at every turn.

…Sessions’s efforts would be immensely aided if Congress finally passed the No Sanctuary for Criminals Act sponsored by Virginia congressman Bob Goodlatte. That bill would clarify ICE’s authority to enforce federal detainer requests and would confirm the attorney general’s authority to withhold federal funding from scofflaw jurisdictions. Most importantly, it would allow both the federal government and victims of sanctuary policies to sue sanctuary governments. The Steinle family had sued San Francisco and former sheriff Ross Mirkarimi in 2016 for their failure to notify ICE of Garcia Zarate’s release, but a federal judge threw out the case earlier this year. The Goodlatte bill would have allowed their suit to proceed. The passage of “Kate’s Law,” which lengthens the federal sentences for felonious reentry following deportation, is less urgent.

While building a border wall is an important part of a sound immigration policy, preserving the rule of law inside the country is even more important. The advocates’ agenda is clear: they want to stop all deportations and in so doing eviscerate our sovereignty once and for all. Their ultimate aim is to transform the country culturally and demographically. Sanctuary policies are one of their most powerful weapons in that crusade.

Read more here.