Governors of deep blue states are scrambling and jockeying to craft their narrative to Donald Trump’s election-winning deportation message, with varying results.
Thus far, California’s governor is attempting to become the anti-Trump opposition leader, as Massachusetts’s top executive is softening her state’s sanctuary status, and even Illinois’ leftist goveror is suddenly supporting the idea of deporting “criminals.”
These Democrats are all pushing what former GOP House Speaker Newt Gingrich calls an “act of insurrection” against the legally elected president of the United States.
Last month, Gingrich blasted the threats made by Denver’s extremist mayor that he would use his city police department as his own personal Confederate Army troops to physically oppose officers of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Gingrich pointed out that “The mayor of Denver doesn’t seem to understand that the United States Army settled the question of states, counties and cities defying the federal government in a meeting at Appomattox in 1865 when General Lee surrendered.”
The Democrats are grasping for ways to respond to Trump, nonetheless, and no dominant narrative has yet emerged.
Probably unsurprisingly, with images of the White House dancing in his head, radical, left-wing California Gov. Gavin Newsom is attempting to set himself up as the chief resistance to Trump’s deportation plans.
This week, just before Christmas, Newsom announced that he would begin looking for ways to help illegals evade federal authorities in a blatant attempt to thwart Donald Trump from fulfilling his campaign pledge to launch the biggest deportation campaign in U.S. history.
Newsom’s extremist regime pushed out a memo entitled “Immigrant Support Network Concept,” which proposed regional hubs to “connect at-risk individuals, their families, and communities with community systems — such as legal services, schools, labor unions, local governments, etc.,” Fox News reported.
Not only is Newsom looking to create entire bureaucracies geared toward evading federal law, he also pledged to throw $25 million in tax dollars into efforts to “Trump proof” the state by funding every way his Democrats can devise to shield illegals from ICE, and he also called a special legislative session to push the policy.
The entire scheme is clearly Newsom’s way to be seen as the face of Trump opposition in preparation for a run for the White House in 2028.
Meanwhile, in the center of the nation, Illinois’ left-wing Gov. J.B. Pritzker found himself a sudden fan of deporting “criminal” illegals. A few weeks before Trump’s massive election victory, Pritzker seemed to see the writing on the wall and tried to walk a finer line by insisting that “violent criminals” should be deported, but all other illegals should be protected.
On the other hand, he also tried to burnish his opposition bona fides by claiming he would oppose “raids” to round up illegals.
“We also just want to make sure there isn’t a violation of people’s rights with … raids … that are done in coordination [with] local law enforcement,” he said the week after Trump’s election. “We think that’s improper and in Illinois, that’s not something that we would condone.”
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul also tried to fudge her past blatant support for illegals by adopting some tougher sounding verbiage.
As the country turned to favor President-elect Donald Trump’s plans to deport illegal aliens, Hochul performed an about-face last month when she claimed during a press conference that she favors deporting illegals accused of or convicted of crimes.
“If someone breaks the law, I’ll be the first one to call up ICE and say, ‘Get them out of here,’” the sanctuary state governor exclaimed.
Yet, despite Hochul’s tougher talk, her Democrat-dominated legislature went the Newsom way by introducing legislation to make it even harder to deport illegals from New York.
In contrast, the Democrat governor of Massachusetts, Maura Healey, made as if to sound like a sudden hardliner on migrants. Healey seemed to backpedal on her state’s status as a “sanctuary” for illegals in not one, but two interviews, where she flat out said that the Bay State is “not a sanctuary state.”
Healey made this startling claim in interviews with the Boston Globe and the Boston Herald in which Healey not only said her state is not a sanctuary state, but said she will work with the feds to deport illegals, and would reduce the amount spent on sheltering illegals.
This despite the fact that Massachusetts has enshrined in its laws a “right to shelter” for anyone who is homeless and without a place to stay.
But speaking of this “right,” she told the Globe, “My view is that the law was never intended to apply to the circumstance that we’ve been dealing with the last couple of years here, people coming from other states.”
“We are not a sanctuary state,” she continued, “and we simply do not have a means to house people.”
Healey is throwing $856 million in tax dollars at shelters for illegals, which is still a budget cut from the expected $932 million. And Healey says more cuts will be coming to spending on migrants.
Healey also told the Herald that she thinks state and local jurisdictions should work with the feds to deport “criminal” migrants from the state.
Despite that turnaround, Healey is not suggesting that the state or its counties and cities cancel their rules preventing police officers from working with ICE, so it is not exactly clear how she expects criminal illegals to be deported if she does not back police agencies working with the feds to do so.
It is likely that more of a consensus on responding to Trump’s policies will come together after the 47th President actually puts his machinery in place to begin the deportation process. But right now, Democrat governors are floating trial balloons on the issue.
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