Sessions to California: 'There is no secession'

[DonViejo]

Source: The Hill




BY BRETT SAMUELS - 03/07/18 12:10 PM EST

Link to tweet

Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Wednesday announced a Justice Department lawsuit against California for its immigration policies, which he called “irrational, unfair, and unconstitutional.”

“I understand that we have a wide variety of political opinions out there on immigration. But the law is in the books and its purposes are clear and just,” Sessions said during a speech to the California Peace Officers’ Association in Sacramento.

“There is no nullification. There is no secession. Federal law is the supreme law of the land. I would invite any doubters to go to Gettysburg, to the tombstones of John C. Calhoun and Abraham Lincoln. This matter has been settled,” he continued.

-snip-

He singled out Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf, who last month warned residents of an impending Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raid. Schaaf defended her decision even after ICE said it was unable to locate more than 800 people as part of its sweep of the city. "Here’s my message to Mayor Schaaf: How dare you," Sessions said Wednesday. "How dare you needlessly endanger the lives of our law enforcement officers to promote a radical open borders agenda."



Read more: http://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/377182-sessions-to-california-there-is-no-secession

[orangecrush]

1. Nazi elf

You're going down with the rest of the coup.

[olegramps]

15. Just like the rest of the trash from Alabamie they have a dream: The return of Robert E Lee.

They dream of the return of the good ole days of whipping slaves and selling cotton while sipping Mint Juleps and screwing the slaves.

[radliberal]

21. That's rich, coming from the most lawless administration in American history

wake me when it's over

[Eliot Rosewater]

2. Sessions, rumpface and their deplorable followers would love to

get rid of pesky liberals and patriots, same thing, all over the country including out in wacky California.



They simply dont want us here in America.

[BuddhaGirl]

3. NO, how dare YOU you hateful, racist troll

How are YOU impose your racist agenda, causing needless suffering and persecution.

I am a Californian. Fuck off, Sessions!

[FSogol]

4. Isn't Sessions a States Rights Proponent?

[lark]

5. Only when it fits his personal bias.

He and drumpf think all laws are invalid that don't benefit them, the private prison industry or other rw oligarchs. They clearly favor treason and profiteering off the American worker, regardless of any and all laws.

[TranssexualKaren]

6. Said it before and I will say it again....

CALEXIT anyone!!!
That’s what happens when a dictator divides the country into friends and enemies

[Oneironaut]

30. CalExit was created by the Russians.

I don't think you'll find any real support for it, nor should there be.

[Plucketeer]

7. What's it all about - Elfie?

I'd love to "Julep-board" this blithering idjit.

[haele]

8. It's not secession, it's jurisdiction.

You can't force local police to act as ICE agents. When an undocumented person commit a crime, then ICE can go after them after the police arrest them and they're identified in a federal database as being undocumented.

The term "Sanctuary City" or Sanctuary State" has no real definition - legal or social. It's just a pretty term to indicate the local police are not going to go outside their legal jurisdiction to go after undocumented residents if they're not doing anything wrong other than being undocumented.

It doesn't mean diplomatic immunity, it just means maintaining jurisdictional lines and common sense policing.

I really hate it when bigoted a-holes like Sessions and most of the GOP think they have the right to force other people to think the way they do, and think we as citizens should gladly pay for their fearful or greedy emotional world view.

Local police are not ICE agents, and do not have the resources to take on the additional work and responsibilities. Local police should not be forced to bend over backwards and take community assets away from real policing because ICE is too greedy to stay within their jurisdiction and want to inflate their numbers with otherwise harmless "soft targets" who are just trying to get by and make a better life for their families and communities.

A mom or construction worker minding their own business and trying to get by while undocumented is not endangering law enforcement officers.

Sullen teens with a overweening sense of offended privilege and little incentive to do something with their lives are far more dangerous to law enforcement officers.

Haele

[TranssexualKaren]

9. Ok, but what is the solution when the standing regime refuses to recognize the difference?

[haele]

14. Take it to the Courts. Again and Again.

1. "Sanctuary Cities" are not even a trademark. It's a campaign slogan, at best. There's no recognizable definition of what that designation actually means - just like a nickname. If I regularly call my boss "Pickle-Bear" in public and s/he's cool with it, what does that mean to anyone else other than a general sense of camaraderie or trusting friendship?
2. Jurisdiction/State and Local Rights. The state and local governments are still following the rules so far as they can, but they're not going out of their way to spend their limited resources targeting otherwise "law abiding" citizens. Just as state and local governments don't - and can't - aggressively go after under-the-table tax cheats or people driving or running businesses without licenses or insurance, they don't have to go after and spend money on otherwise harmless undocumented residents that wouldn't normally even come up on their budgetary radar.
3. Equal protection/targeting based on race - and the 5th Amendment. ICE is going after Central and South Americans in particular. Yes, they'll get the occasional European or Asian "outstayed the visa" business owner or professional when they get a complaint about his or her status from a rival or vengeful a-hole, but for the most part, ICE targets communities where there are already a lot of green-card holders, naturalized and native born citizens who just happen to be brown and speak a version of Spanish along with English.
How many poor native born citizens have been targeted up by ICE just because of the way they look when they don't think they have to carry their ID with them at all times? What if all someone who's brown has as official identification is a Social Security card and their birth certificate, which they keep at home (like you're supposed to) and bring out when necessary? Will INS and Homeland Security be focusing on groups of people who look like they have Polish or Irish heritage as hard as they do people who look like the darker section of a sample paint hue strip?

It's not legal to target people due to their ethnicity. So, forcing states and local governments to do so is unconstitutional - especially by withholding funding or other punitive measures.

Haele

[TranssexualKaren]

18. Well, so far....

The courts have been an important check on Trump, I will grant you. But this is a man who has started openly joking about making himself dictator for life (no, it wasn’t a very funny joke), what happens when the courts cease to function as a check?

[PoliticAverse]

29. You can't force local police to act as ICE agents, but at the same time you can't actively hinder...

the Federal Government's enforcement of its laws by passing laws specifically intended to do so.

The courts will have to decide the boundary line in this matter.

Copy of the DOJ lawsuit:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1uYcws2UaSH9wdoQjDBaJRluY6pJuijbJ/view

[malthaussen]

10. Jefferson Davis Beauregard says "there is no secession." n/t

[FreeStateDemocrat]

12. Catchy name, remind me again who the fuck was good ol' Jeff Davis, a great American???

[Javaman]

11. that's right keebler, piss off California whose economy basically floats the United States. nt

[usaf-vet]

13. BS!!! Jeff Sessions. You pick and choose. States rights when it benefits you.

Federal laws when you don't like what the states have decided and legislated.

California needs migrant workers for picking the nations farm products. So if California want to treat migrant farm workers as a needed individual then why should the racist Sessions get to ignore that state's rights.

[Initech]

16. Fuck you Jeff!!!!! GTFO out of my state!

[hatrack]

17. Bilbo Bigot speaks!

.

[Glamrock]

33. Bilbo Bigot!

Consider it stolen.

[LastLiberal in PalmSprings]

19. If there's someone who knows how to do righteous indignation, it's Jeff Sessions.

Message to Mr. Sessions: We. Don't. Need. You.

You come from a state which trumpeted "state's rights" as a clarion call to continue your racist actions when the rest of the country was moving forward in its inclusiveness. I know, I was attending Robert E. Lee High School in Montgomery the first year it was integrated, and I saw firsthand how hard the state fought to keep the status quo.

Now you fight the very idea that a state can run itself for the benefit of all its people, and not a select few.

You tell the Californian police officers that sanctuary cities, and California being a sanctuary state, is putting their lives at risk. Don't you think that if that was true you would hear it said by the men themselves. Don't you think that sheriffs and police captains and the police union would be on the steps of Sacramento and outside the mayor's office of every city to protest being threatened by the sanctuary movement? Have you noticed that they aren't? Could it be they don't see a threat? Could it be they understand their jobs are easier when the local population -- and especially the people the laws are to protect -- aren't afraid to approach their police when real threats exist?

Your claim that you are only protecting their lives is an excuse to impose your narrow racist views on others, just as your boss uses "honor the troops" to justify the multi-million dollar parade that serves only to inflate his fragile ego.

You are both small men, not of stature but of character and vision.

We don't need you to tell us how to run our state. We're a maker state -- we send more taxes to Washington than we get back in benefits -- and you are from a taker state. You are a little man in more than one way; your thoughts are puny, you have no vision other than your narrow, myopic view of the world, you are more comfortable in the world of your countryman, Judge Moore, who thinks America's best days was when slavery was the law of the land in the South.

We're tired of you and your buffoon boss trying to tell us how to run our state. We are a diverse population with dreams that looks forward to living in the 21st century; you want to hold us in the 20th, or even the 19th.

[alwaysinasnit]

20. This will be fun to watch as it plays out in the courts (9th Circuit)

https://www.ice.gov/287g - This is the provision that had been previously used to "deputize" local law enforcement. The provision is purely voluntary. If Sessions is looking to make it mandatory....

Forcing a State to do Federal bidding is unconstitutional;

In the early 90s, the state of New York sued the federal government asserting provisions in the Low-Level Radioactive Waste Policy Amendments Act of 1985 were coercive and violated its sovereignty under the Tenth Amendment. The Court majority in New York v. United States (1992) agreed, holding that “because the Act’s take title provision offers the States a ‘choice’ between the two unconstitutionally coercive alternatives–either accepting ownership of waste or regulating according to Congress’ instructions–the provision lies outside Congress’ enumerated powers and is inconsistent with the Tenth Amendment.”

Sandra Day O’Connor wrote for the majority in the 6-3 decision.

As an initial matter, Congress may not simply “commandeer" the legislative processes of the States by directly compelling them to enact and enforce a federal regulatory program.”

[Cold War Spook]

22. 10th Amendment

Doesn't the 10th Amendment allow states to refuse helping ICE but not to hinder them?

[PoliticAverse]

28. States aren't required to enforce the laws of the Federal Government, but as you point out...

they also can't hinder them (engage in obstruction of justice). This lawsuit concerns laws that
the DOJ claims specifically interferes with the Federal Government's enforcement of its laws.

The matter will be up to the courts to decide.

Copy of the DOJ lawsuit.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1uYcws2UaSH9wdoQjDBaJRluY6pJuijbJ/view

[roamer65]

23. So what you gonna do to stop CA, numbnuts?

Start a second civil war? Go right ahead and see how far you get with that you inbred piece of southern shit.

[TheFrenchRazor]

24. well, there should be, IMO. nt

[Zorro]

25. The chief law enforcement perjurer said what?

[muntrv]

26. "... Alabama tried it and failed."

[Lint Head]

27. Had no idea that Jeff the Elf stuttered.

[left-of-center2012]

31. Was everyone ordered to applaud?

[Thomas Hurt]

32. LOL, states rights for me, not for thee...