California: Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye condemns ICE in court as Sanctuary State bill moves ahead
California’s highest ranking judicial officer took aim the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement policy, repeating her condemnation of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations at court facilities as California is considering a Sanctuary State bill to prevent local and state police from enforcing federal immigration law.
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State Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye said Tuesday she has a duty to call out federal agents who arrest illegal immigrants in or near the California’s courthouses.
“If no one ever speaks out, then we can never be the land of the free and the home of the brave,” Cantil-Sakauye said at a panel discussion hosted by state Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson.
Her remarks came as the California Assembly legislature takes up Senate Bill 54, a sanctuary state proposal that would prohibit the use of state and local public resources to aid federal immigration enforcement. If enacted, the California Values Act would effectively cut off all voluntary cooperation between local law enforcement and ICE, except in cases required by federal law.
“We’re seeing people not coming to court, not reporting to court, not coming for services (and) not coming to testify … This has an effect not only on the immediate case and the safety of communities, but people who live in the communities,” she said.
The move comes just months after ICE arrested over 190 across Southern California in a five-day operation that targeted “public safety threats,” including criminal foreign nationals, illegal re-entrants and immigration fugitives.
Among them were 15 people convicted of sex crimes, including a convicted rapist, a previously deported cocaine trafficker and two people convicted of cruelty to a child.
“It’s a win for us, and now we’ve taken these convicted criminals off the streets so they can’t re-offend, they can’t make more victims and, ultimately, our goal is to remove them from the country,” David Marin, field office director for Enforcement and Removal Operations for ICE in Los Angeles, said in an interview about the six-county sweep. “They weren’t people who just had traffic tickets or speeding violations.”
The convicted rapist, who was arrested in Los Angeles on Monday, was a 29-year-old Salvadoran national who was deported in 2013 after he served a nine-year prison term before returning illegally to the U.S., according to ICE.
