Sheriff Clarke…Quoted The Law He Thinks Will Bring Down Sanctuary Cities

Milwaukee Sheriff David Clarke, a rising star in conservative circles, spoke Thursday afternoon at CPAC to a crowded ballroom who greeted him with enthusiastic cheers and applause.

During his speech – as part of a panel themed around “World War Three” and security threats at home – Clarke singled out sanctuary cities as one of America’s most dangerous threats and read aloud from the law he argued President Trump can use to bring them down.

Clarke walked up to the front of the stage, directly addressing the audience, and read aloud from a printed copy of U.S. Code 1324, titled ‘Bringing in and harboring certain aliens.’ The law reads in part that “punishment” can be dealt to:

Any person…knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that an alien has come to, entered, or remains in the United States in violation of law, conceals, harbors, or shields from detection, or attempts to conceal, harbor, or shield from detection, such alien in any place, including any building or any means of transportation.

Local officials who encourage sanctuary cities, Clarke said, do exactly that. In addition, Clarke quoted another section of the code that puts sanctuary cities on the wrong side of the law:

…encourages or induces an alien to come to, enter, or reside in the United States, knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that such coming to, entry, or residence is or will be in violation of law;

“I’m telling you right now folks,” Clarke said to applause, “you charge one mayor, one governor, one council president that adopts these laws, this stuff is going to end right away.”

(snip)

As Judge Andrew Napolitano has written, the federal government cannot constitutionally force states to enforce federal immigration law. However, as the Center for Immigration Studies argues, there are several laws – including U.S.C. 1324 – that prohibit officials from interfering with federal law enforcement.

The decision to try and prosecute any sanctuary city officials over said laws would ultimately fall to Trump’s Justice Department, which has so far kept its powder dry. An executive order signed by Trump last month directed the Attorney General to pull grant funding from sanctuary cities and “take appropriate enforcement action.”

A spokeswoman for the Immigration Reform Law Institute, when asked for comment, acknowledged that the decision to prosecute anyone under 1324 would fall to the Justice Department, but pointed to another section of U.S law, Section 1373:

Section 1373 was enacted as part of the 1996 Welfare Reform Act to ensure taxpayer money would not be funneled to illegal aliens (“a compelling government interest” and “the immigration policy of the United States”), which also serves the purpose of deterring illegal immigration. As a result, 1373 would be reasonably related to the policy goals of any federal grant providing public assistance of any kind to a state where an illegal alien could possibly benefit from a state’s receipt thereof.

Denying sanctuary cities funding may be the most logical route – at least for now.

Read more plus video at INDEPENDENT JOURNAL REVIEW

Photo credit: Getty Images

Perez DNC Win Over Ellison Spells Bigger Danger

Ellison takes a back seat to Perez, perhaps symbolic of new Democrat interests to pander to a preferred constituency they’re helping to grow — while continuing to take one deemed more traditionally exploitable for granted. [Democratic Party – Facebook video screen capture]

“Minnesota Congressman Keith Ellison fell short Saturday in his campaign to run the Democratic National Committee, losing to former Labor Secretary Tom Perez,” NPR News reported. “[T]he next chairman is sure to have a pivotal role in remaking the party ahead of the 2018 midterm elections and a 2020 presidential contest. Democrats hope to feed off large protests and displays of resistance in the opening month of the Trump presidency.

Interesting, admitting they benefit from all  the “unrest” being ginned up. While both are demonstrable domestic enemies of freedom, Perez represents the bigger danger, and the one more likely to be able to push back politically against “conservative” initiatives. That’s because, at least so far, he’s been less of a lightning rod.

True, both he and Ellison have long histories of oath-breaking and subversion. Both are for cultural terraforming of the Republic through “immigration” and “refugee” actions to bring in and embed or sanction existing unvetted foreign nationals. And both are hostile to the right of the people to keep and bear arms.

But Ellison is more vulnerable to exploitable suspicions over his agenda and motives, not only because of his documented racism and sympathies with radical Islamists, but also because of his affiliation with Democrat Socialists of America, who found it in their political interests to (at least temporarily) retire their songs of solidarity:

Does anyone wonder why Democrat Socialists support what they call “common sense gun safety” (i.e., citizen disarmament) laws?

Those vulnerabilities, I argued, made Ellison the perfect choice to “lead” a party that refuses to accept why Hillary lost, and that continues to double down on alienating flyover America. He would provide constant opportunities to make such inconvenient truths known to the wider public, and thus subject all of his moves to wider scrutiny for unstated motives.

The relatively lesser-known Perez has been more insulated, and will be better able to present his agenda as humanitarian, and as championing of the desperate and downtrodden. And that – being able to appeal to empathy from those who neither understand the underlying issues nor what is at stake – makes his ascendency to Democrat leadership all the more dangerous.

Back before he took on the Labor gig, Perez was an Assistant Attorney General under Eric Holder, heading the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division. He’s the guy who warned states like Texas and South Carolina that their duly-enacted voting laws were discriminatory because they required a state-issued photo ID. As I noted at the time:

If Perez is correct, that lack of state-issued photo ID is 20% more likely to disenfranchise minorities from their right to vote, why would we not also believe it would have a similar effect on their right to purchase a firearm, as is specified on ATF’s Form 4473 requiring a driver’s license or “valid government issued photo identification,” and similar forms as proof of eligibility?

The government can’t have it both ways. By their own admission and actions, they consider a requirement to produce official photo identification as discriminatory, with a significant statistical impact on the enfranchisement of minority rights. Heller and McDonald leave no doubt that the Second Amendment articulates an individual right recognized by the federal government and applicable to the states, and it is the duty of the Department of Justice to ensure that denials of rights are prosecuted.

Likewise, state-issued identification is required to obtain concealed carry permits and to apply for registration/transfer of National Firearms Act weapons such as machine guns, short barrel firearms, destructive devices, AOWs, etc. So the question now becomes why is the head of the Justice Department’s civil rights division tolerating, allowing and insisting on discrimination against minorities in general and Hispanics in particular when it comes to exercising their Second Amendment-recognized right to keep and bear arms?

The danger, of course, involves more than the Second Amendment, which, after all, is a leading indicator for the larger Freedom issue. There’s a reason why the Democrat agenda demands bringing in more foreign nationals and putting them on a “pathway to citizenship.” And that’s something establishment Republicans in general and the National Rifle Association in particular have shown deliberate indifference to.

That’s evidenced by the just-concluded Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), and the prominent roles played by both NRA’s Wayne LaPierre and by NRA darling and Bloomberg “immigration” ally Grover Norquist (although this time once more wearing his competing Americans for Tax Reform hat). Neither will address a simple challenge, preferring to ignore it and hoping the information will not escape a relatively isolated echo chamber:

In addition to explaining the California experience, produce credible data – something that can be independently validated – that “amnesty” and a “pathway to citizenship” for MILLIONS of foreign nationals in this country illegally (and even legally, with current culturally suicidal policies) WILL NOT overwhelmingly favor Democrats and anti-gunners.

Show us your sources and methodologies for determining this WILL NOT result in supermajorities in state and federal legislatures that will be able to pass all kinds of anti-gun edicts. Show us how this WILL NOT result in nominations and confirmations of judges to the Supreme and federal courts who will uphold those edicts, and reverse gains made to date.

Notice I didn’t ask for platitudes or for anecdotes about exceptions to the rule, or about who is turning up in increasing numbers at gun stores and ranges – that doesn’t matter if you can’t point to a corresponding overriding shift in voting trends. I didn’t ask for wishful speculation about how education and outreach programs MIGHT help bring more over to the NRA side. I asked you to show how all credible estimates putting the disparity at over 70% Democrat and anti-gun are wrong (and how the needle barely moves in the right direction after 20 years).

If you think that can be changed, you’re going to need to be specific about how (assuming it can be done, which you’ll also need to spell out), and how by then the damage won’t be irreversible, beyond any kind of beltway insider political “solution.” Instead of opinions, how about some verifiable numbers?

This is what Perez represents, and will base much of his DNC leadership on and the media will happily amplify his voice and ensure their “reporting” does all it can to evoke agreement with it, all the while portraying opponents as xenophobes, extremists and haters. What they won’t focus on are negatives that could call his credibility into questions such as:

Perez Dropped Voter Intimidation Charges Against Black Panthers Who Brought Weapons to a Polling Place … Perez Doesn’t Think White People Are Protected Under the Voting Rights Act … Perez Abandoned a Whistleblower Lawsuit That Cost Taxpayers Millions … He Used a Private Email Address to Dodge Accountability … He Continues to Ignore and Mislead Congress

Lacking some of Ellison’s more overt vulnerabilities and, up until now, name recognition, Perez will arguably be in a better position to advance his radical, subversive agenda. So it wouldn’t hurt to learn more about that agenda, and to share such information with others who would otherwise never hear of it.