Fox: ‘Rule of Law’ Complaints from ‘Sanctuary City’ Democrats Hard to Fathom

California political commentator Joel Fox criticized local Democrats on Tuesday for claiming to stand up for the “rule of law” while also advocating for “sanctuary” policies that defy federal immigration law.

Fox wrote:

California’s Attorney General, Xavier Becerra, in responding positively to a federal court’s injunction halting Trump’s executive order against sanctuary cities, declared, “This injunction is consistent with the rule of law.”

Yet, those opposed to sanctuary cities and California’s effort to become a sanctuary state ask that if people came into the country against the laws on the books, is not that a violation of the “rule of law”?

Some have even compared the efforts to ignore federal immigration laws to the nullification efforts future Confederate states used to challenge federal authority prior to the Civil War.

Fox went on to point out that there is a case to be made that standing up for the “rule of law” sometimes means opposing unjust laws, as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. did during the Civil Rights Movement:

But one can respect laws and still resist, The Rev. Martin Luther King wrote in his Letter from the Birmingham Jail. “I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law.”

He concluded that politicians should clarify what they mean when they use the term “rule of law,” noting that for some it means “[s]trict adherence to laws on the books,” while for others it reflects some broader notion of “true justice.” The term is important, he argued, because the public sees rule of law as the pillar of a stable society.

Read the full column here.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He was named one of the “most influential” people in news media in 2016. He is the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.