City in Orange County May Defy California’s ‘Sanctuary State’ Law

The city council of Los Alamitos, in Orange Country, will vote Monday on whether to defy SB 54, the State of California’s “sanctuary state” law, which passed last year and went into effect January 1.

SB 54, officially known as the “California Values Act,” restricts state and local cooperation with federal immigration enforcement authorities. It is one of three “sanctuary state” laws that is being challenged by the U.S. Department of Justice on constitutional grounds.

According to legal experts, it is the only one of the three laws that has a chance of surviving. However, Los Alamitos is not waiting for the courts to rule.

The Orange County Register notes:

The state law, which took effect Jan. 1, “may be in direct conflict with federal laws and the Constitution of the United States,” reads the proposed local law.

Stating that council members have taken an oath to defend the U.S. Constitution, the ordinance says the council “finds that it is impossible to honor our oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States” and at the same time be in compliance with the new state law.

Supporters of the proposed city ordinance say that the city council members took an oath to defend the Constitution when they assumed their local offices, and that their duty supersedes the state legislature’s effort to resist federal immigration law.

However, critics say that the state law does not conflict with the Constitution.

Orange County has traditionally been a conservative stronghold, but the county was won by Hillary Clinton in 2016, and Democrats hope to build on that showing to unseat several Republicans in the U.S. House this year.

The Los Alamitos ordinance is one of several efforts by conservative regions of the state to chart a different path from the Democrat-dominated state government. The State of Jefferson and the New California movements are both efforts to withdraw from California as its “resistance” to the Trump administration intensifies.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He was named to Forward’s 50 “most influential” Jews in 2017. He is the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, which is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.