Sen. Lowenthal's Wrong View on Illegal Immigration

(Note: The author is not affiliated with any political candidate or campaign, but has declared his support for Lowenthal's opponent).

State Senator Alan Lowenthal appears to have an illegal immigration problem or,
perhaps more accurately, a problem accepting the fact that illegal immigration
is, in fact, unlawful and that laws prohibiting illegal immigration should be fully enforced.

Regardless of whether or not one feels it should be considered unlawful to violate our nation's various immigration laws, the hard fact remains that such violations are, indeed, illegal.

Our immigration laws are codified in federal law, specifically in Title 8 of our Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) and our US Code (USC). These laws were passed by our duly-elected representatives in Congress and signed into law by duly-elected U.S Presidents.

Similarly, California's State Constitution was enacted (and has since been amended many times) by our State Legislators and Governors and stipulates that the United States Constitution is "the supreme law of the land" (Article 3, Section I)

The statutes in California's Penal Code have likewise been passed by our State Legislators. One of those statutes is PC834b(a)
which states:

"Every law enforcement agency in California shall fully
cooperate with the United States Immigration and Naturalization
Service regarding any person who is arrested if he or she is
suspected of being present in the United States in violation of
federal immigration laws."

In the off-chance that anyone reading the mandatory tone in PC834b(a) misunderstood the Legislature's intent, they also saw fit to add additional language at PC834b(c):

"Any legislative, administrative, or other action by a city,
county, or other legally authorized local governmental entity with
jurisdictional boundaries, or by a law enforcement agency, to prevent
or limit the cooperation required by subdivision (a) is expressly
prohibited."

Various States have their respective challenges with illegal immigration. California is routinely at the very top of that list each year. laalmanac.com reports that
as of 2009 there were an estimated 2.6 million illegal immigrants residing in California.

The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) reported some interesting findings in its 2010 study entitled "The Fiscal Burden of Illegal Immigration on U.S. Taxpayers":

• California is hit with an estimated $21.8 billion in annual expenditures on illegal aliens" (page 4)
• In 2005, ICE estimated that 80% of the California members of the nationwide, violent "18th Street Gang" -which originated in Los Angeles- were illegal aliens from Mexico and Central America (Page 21)
• The combined federal/state/local net outlay for services and benefits provided to illegal aliens amounts to nearly $113 billion annually. (page 82) 

Given the depth and breadth of illegal immigration challenges in California and the nation and given the fact that our own State laws recognize both the supremacy of federal law and mandate local law enforcement cooperation with federal immigration authorities, it troubles me a very great deal that a person who is currently serving as a California State Senator -and is running for election to the newly redrawn 47th Congressional District- has made recent and overt efforts to prohibit local law enforcement agencies in California from actually complying with our own State laws as quoted above.

Sen. Lowenthal's recent efforts in this regard took the form of his support for State Assembly Bill 1081 - "State government: federal immigration policy enforcement."

http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billSearchClient.xhtml 

(enter "AB1081" in the search window at top/right)

Governor Brown fortunately chose to veto AB 1081, but had he signed it, local law enforcement agencies would have, under the majority of circumstances, been prohibited from detaining a person at the request of federal immigration authorities, even when that person was already in custody on another matter not related to immigration.

There would have been exceptions to this prohibition but the exceptions listed
fortunately did not meet with Governor Brown's approval. In his Veto Message,
Governor Brown said:

"...unfortunately, the list of violent offenses codified in the bill is fatally flawed because it omits many serious crimes. For example, the bill would bar local cooperation even when the person arrested has been convicted of certain crimes involving child abuse, drug trafficking, selling weapons, using children to sell drugs, or gangs."

Governor Brown was not satisfied that AB 1081 would have barred local law enforcement cooperation even in the case of a suspected illegal immigrant who local authorities had arrested for a public offense and who had been previously convicted of child abuse.

Apparently Sen. Lowenthal did not share the Governor's reservations. Sen. Lowenthal voted in support of AB 1081 twice, first on July 5th and then again on August 21st, 2012.

It was Lowenthal's "yes" vote on August 21st that helped send AB 1081 to the Governor's desk for signature. Nor is AB 1081 entirely dead. The Governor has also indicated he will work with legislators to correct what he feels are the flaws in the list of exceptions. If given yet another opportunity to vote in support of AB 1081, it seems reasonable to assume that Sen. Lowenthal will most certainly do so. 

Given the facts as stated above, it seems apparent that Sen. Lowenthal seeks to severely limit the ability of California's local law enforcers to cooperate with immigration authorities, even though, as shown, our own Penal Code mandates that they cooperate, and cooperate fully and even though, as the Governor indicated, the list of exceptions in the bill was "fatally flawed."

Despite all of the challenges related to illegal immigration that severely burden California, Sen. Lowenthal seems to have a problem with fully cooperating with lawful federal immigration enforcement efforts here.

I think that is a very unfortunate position and, in my opinion, not at all appropriate for a current State Senator, especially one who is currently seeking election to the U.S. Congress.

I welcome your questions and comments.