The Santa Clarita City Council has voted unanimously to oppose California’s status as a sanctuary state, becoming the latest local authority to do so in an ongoing revolt against the state’s loose immigration laws.
Members of the city council voted 5-0 to oppose Senate Bill 54, which allows local law enforcement not to cooperate with federal immigration authorities.
According to Los Angeles Times, the atmosphere at the meeting was often “tense,” as audience members “repeatedly heckled and booed one another, prompting reprimands from Mayor Laurene Weste.”
“They are deciding that they don’t want to comply with the federal government whose policy they don’t agree with,” one man told ABC7. “It seems very similar to what the Confederacy did in 1861, to me.”
“I don’t understand. When these people have committed a crime … why can’t one agency be able to call another agency?” another woman, named Annette Burns, told the Times.
In March, City council members of the Orange County city of Los Alamitos became the first local authority to reject the state’s sanctuary law, setting off a domino effect in other Orange County cities including Fountain Valley, Huntington Beach, Mission Viejo, San Juan Capistrano, and Aliso Viejo.
Since then, other towns and cities to oppose the law have included Escondido in San Diego County and Hesperia in San Bernardino County.
California is currently the subject of a lawsuit from the federal government over its refusal to enforce federal immigration law. Last Friday, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra filed a motion to dismiss, arguing that “California’s laws work in concert – not conflict – with federal laws and are fully constitutional.”
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