Sloppiness of Homeland Security’s ‘sanctuary city’ list is the point

The Division of Homeland Safety’s “sanctuary jurisdiction checklist” has extra holes than the plot for the most recent “Mission Unimaginable” movie.

All you have to find out about its accuracy is how my native Orange County fared.

The one O.C. metropolis on the checklist is Huntington Seashore — you already know, the ‘burb with an all-Republican council that’s suing California for being a sanctuary state, declared itself a “non-sanctuary” neighborhood in January and and plans to put a plaque outdoors the town’s primary library with an acrostic “MAGA” message.

Lacking from the checklist? Santa Ana, lengthy synonymous with undocumented immigrants, which declared itself a sanctuary metropolis all the best way again in 2016 and has a deportation protection fund for residents.

Extra laughable errors: Livingston, the primary metropolis within the Central Valley to declare itself a sanctuary for immigrants in 2017, isn’t on the checklist. But Santee in San Diego County, so infamous for its racism that individuals nonetheless name it “Klantee,” is.

There’s even Represa. Ever heard of it? Me, neither. Seems it’s not a metropolis however the title of the publish workplace for 2 locations not precisely referred to as sanctuaries: Folsom State Jail and California State Jail, Sacramento.

Inside hours of his inauguration, Donald Trump signed an government order tellingly titled “Defending the American Individuals In opposition to Invasion” that, amongst different issues, acknowledged that sanctuary jurisdictions ought to not obtain federal funds.

However the Could 29 checklist laying out the jurisdictions which can be supposedly topic to the penalty was so flawed that it was taken off the Homeland Safety web site inside days. It’s nonetheless not again up. The trouble appeared cobbled collectively by somebody who typed “sanctuary” and a metropolis’s title into Google and swallowed regardless of the AI spat up with out even bothering to cross-check with Wikipedia.

Trump’s opponents are already depicting this fiasco as emblematic of an administration that likes to shoot itself within the foot, then put the bloody foot in its mouth. But it surely’s even worse than that.

The checklist reveals how blinded by fury the Trump administration is about unlawful immigration. There isn’t a mistake too large or too small for Trump to forgive, so long as it’s within the title of deportation and border partitions. The president’s obsession with tying all of this nation’s actual and imagined ills to newcomers jogs my memory of Cato the Elder, the Roman Republic politician well-known for allegedly saying “Carthage should be destroyed” on the finish of all his speeches, irrespective of the subject.

That’s why the pushback by politicians towards Homeland Safety’s large, lovely boo-boo has been fast — and hilarious.

Huntington Seashore Mayor Pat Burns listens to audio system focus on the town’s plan to make Huntington Seashore “a non-sanctuary metropolis for unlawful immigration” throughout a Metropolis Council assembly in January

(James Carbone)

Huntington Seashore Mayor Pat Burns appeared on KCAL Information to declare that Surf Metropolis’s inclusion was “pure negligence” whereas holding a small white bust of Donald Trump the best way a toddler clings to its blankey.

Vista Mayor John Franklin, in the meantime, was on the town council that voted in 2018 to help the Trump administration’s unsuccessful lawsuit towards California’s sanctuary state legislation. He advised ABC 10News San Diego that he thought Vista made the checklist as a result of “one other metropolis within the county that bears the same title to ours … might have, and I haven’t confirmed it but, adopted a sanctuary coverage.”

Dude, say the town’s title: Chula Vista, a far cooler, muy Latino city nearer to the U.S.-Mexico border than Vista is. It’s additionally on the checklist and isn’t a sanctuary metropolis, both.

On the opposite finish of the political spectrum, Rep. Lou Correa (D-Santa Ana) advised the Voice of OC that he just lately suggested Santa Ana officers to “hold their head low” and never make a giant deal about their sanctuary metropolis standing — as if hiding below a desk, like a “Scooby Doo” caper, will by some means save the town from the Trump administration’s haphazard hammer.

Immigration, greater than another a part of Trump’s agenda, exemplifies the Silicon Valley cliché of transferring quick and breaking issues. His administration has deported individuals by mistake and given the center finger to judges who get them organized introduced again. Trump officers are actually transport immigrants to international locations they haven’t any ties to, and shrugging their shoulders. Immigration brokers try to apprehend individuals in locations lengthy thought-about off-limits, like faculties and locations of worship.

And but, this nonetheless isn’t sufficient for Trump.

Deportation charges are rising, however nonetheless to not the degrees seen in some years of the Biden and Obama administrations, and never even near Operation Wetback, the Eisenhower-era program that deported over one million Mexican nationals. Trump’s deportation dream group — Homeland Safety head Kristi Noem, border czar Tom Homan and White Home Deputy Chief of Workers Stephen Miller — has berated ICE officers for not doing extra to adjust to Trump’s needs.

The sanctuary checklist embodies all of this. Who cares if the wreckage entails human lives, or the Structure? The sloppiness is the purpose. The cruelty is the purpose.

Homeland Safety didn’t reply my request to clarify the failings in its sanctuary jurisdiction checklist and why it was taken down. As a substitute, a spokesperson emailed a press release saying “the checklist is being always reviewed and will be modified at any time and will likely be up to date repeatedly.” The choice whether or not to incorporate a spot, the assertion stated, “relies on the analysis of quite a few elements.”

Besides the reality, it appears.

Let’s chortle on the absurd errors whereas we will. Actually, how pendejo are you able to be to suppose that Huntington Seashore is pleasant to undocumented immigrants however Santa Ana isn’t? Let’s chortle whereas we will, as a result of issues are going to get a lot worse earlier than they get higher.