In El Cajon, California, just 25 miles from the Mexican border, a city councilman recently made a simple request. Federal agents had alerted local officials about more than 50 unaccompanied children who might be living in unsafe conditions alongside illegal immigrants. Could El Cajon’s local police conduct a wellness check?The answer, unbelievably, was no because doing so might violate California’s sanctuary law, Senate Bill 54.There is no greater fundamental duty of government than protecting the vulnerable. In a reasonable world, El Cajon police would have acted immediately. Instead, officers were forced to hesitate. California’s sanctuary statute creates legal risk for local authorities who coordinate too closely with federal immigration officials, even in urgent situations like those in El Cajon.
ONE IN FIVE FAIRFAX COUNTY RESIDENTS IS AN ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT OR LIVES WITH ONE, EXPERT TESTIFIES
When criminal illegal immigrants are prioritized over children, we have “a legal and moral emergency.” Those are the words my organization, the America First Policy Institute, used when we filed a suit last month against California Attorney General Rob Bonta. Although the suit is on behalf of the City of El Cajon, the issue extends far beyond a single city. As former acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf recently said in a Senate testimony, “Some on the Left will not stop until we have become a Sanctuary Nation — largely free from all border security and immigration enforcement.”
