Jerry Brown: CA Is Protecting ‘Hard Working’ Undocumented Immigrants from Washington D.C. ‘Xenophobia’

Tuesday on CNN’s “The Lead,” Gov. Jerry Brown (D-CA) said his state passed a bill to protect “hard-working,” undocumented immigrants from Washinton D.C.’s “xenophobia.”

Partial transcript as follows:

TAPPER: I want to ask you about the legislation you have on your desk. Over the weekend California passed a bill making the Golden state a sanctuary state.

BROWN: There is no word sanctuary. This is a bill to have the immigration service do their own work and not attempt to conscript state officials into being part of the immigration service. It does allow close cooperation on data, on drug busts and drug raids, and also working with the immigration service, whether it’s from our prisons, or from the jails when you are dealing with serious criminals.  So it protects public safety but also protects hard working people that contributed a lot to California.

TAPPER: Hard working people who are undocumented immigrants?

BROWN: Yeah. By the way, they have a couple of million working, our agriculture industry, our hospitality industry, our construction industry, they would be in deep trouble without those same people. That’s why we need reform, not bluster, not rhetoric, and not this kind of xenophobia that we see too much of coming out of Washington D.C.

TAPPER: Do you think complying with federal immigration laws it’s optional? Because that would be the counter argument?

BROWN: No and we comply with immigration laws. We are not soldiers of Donald Trump or the federal immigration service. We have our own laws to arrest criminals, to give them a jury trial, and then to provide appropriate punishment. That’s our job. Now, the immigration people can come into our jails; they can interview people, they can pick up people that they think are appropriate. But don’t tell California to do your work. In fact, there are many cases of people who the immigration service said they wanted and they don’t show up to come to get them. So this is a well-balanced bill. The police chief of Los Angeles supported it. There are a number of law enforcement firms officials said it was a much better piece of legislation that was originally introduced and got the name sanctuary state.

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