The Politics of Being a Sancturary State

When a police officer dies in the line of duty (i.e., doing his or her job), it’s tragic — especially when the job they are doing is a routine traffic stop. That’s what happened in the small community of Newman, California. Ronil Singh immigrated from Fiji to the U.S. and eventually became a cop. He worked as a corporal for the Newman police department until he was shot and killed on December 26th by a 33-year-old Mexican national, Paulo Virgen Mendoza — who was in the U.S. illegally. Why did Mendoza shoot Singh? Prosecutors don’t know yet. But as they say in the news business, they are investigating the matter. After a 50 hour manhunt, police found, and arrested, Mendoza in Bakersfield where he was in hiding while trying to get back to Mexico. Seven other people, including Mendoza’s brother, are also suspected of helping him escape from the U.S. back to Mexico.

In the aftermath of this incident, with Mendoza under arrest, and an investigation starting to bring charges to the Stanislaus County District Attorney (Birgit Fladager), this incident is now more political than procedural. With the President using this shooting to call for a wall to be built between the U.S./Mexico border, the Sheriff in Stanislaus County jumped into the political waters with a highly emotional news conference on December 28th with the grieving brother (Reggie Singh) of the slain officer trying to keep it together after losing a family member to gun violence.

Granted, the whole situation is tense, with emotions ranging from despair to anger coming from those affected by the shooting. Singh left behind a wife, a 5-year-old baby, a brother, I’m sure parents, uncles, aunts, cousins, and co-workers who loved and liked him. It’s truly heartbreaking to see how much Singh’s death has affected people close to him. However, I thought Adam Christianson’s news conference was opportunistic and highly political. Now, Sheriffs in California are elected every four years. Christianson is serving his third, four-year term as top cop for the county. He’s not bound by term limits, but as Sheriff, he’s supposed to be non-partisan in his politics, but on the day of his news conference he was anything but.

Christianson took the opportunity of this tragedy to go after SB 54, also known as the California Values Act. Now the act was signed into law on October 5, 2017 by Governor Jerry Brown. In it, there are laws that govern the way in which local and state law enforcement cooperate with
US Immigration & Customs Enforcement, or ICE. Now, I’m not going to get into the whole Sanctuary State debate, but I will point out that Christianson’s news conference was full of political posturing and misinformation — specifically, this claim:

This could have been preventable. And under SB 54 in California  — based on two arrests and DUI and other active warrants that this criminal has out there — law enforcement would have been prevented – prohibited —  from sharing any information with ICE about this criminal gang member

Obviously, there is a lot of misinformation that’s being spread on social media.  If you don’t hear it from us, be cautious about the validity …the valid parts of the information you hear.    

At first, I thought Christianson was saying because of SB 54, his agency and other state and local law enforcement could not share or cooperate with ICE on this case. That is not true at all. Section 7282.5. of the Act gives local law enforcement a lot a discretion in working with ICE. Here are some examples:

A crime resulting in death? Local cops can work with ICE.

Use of a firearm in a crime? Cops can work with ICE.

Gang-related offenses in the Penal Code? Can work with ICE.

Singh died from gunshot wounds from a guy who is supposedly is in the Sureños gang. Now, did Singh’s killer commit gang-related offenses? Christianson offered no proof other than he had multiple Facebook pages where he claimed he was part the Sureños gang. Time will tell if that’s accurate, but right now Mendoza’s lawyer is saying his client is mentally incompetent to stand trial. Under the Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, defendants charged with a crime are guaranteed a fair trial. I know this rankles the emotions of those who have a lot of bloodlust over this case, but because of those pesky Bill of Rights, people not only have a right to a fair trial, but they have to be able to understand the charges against them. One may protest and say “But, but, but…he’s an illegal alien. He shouldn’t have the same rights as a citizen of this country.” Ah, therein lies the rub. In the U.S. Constitution, there are often provisions that bestow rights on all persons, and not exclusively citizens — the Sixth Amendment is one of those areas. So, while the act of murder is certainly abhorrent to anyone with a moral compass, rights that are based on laws with universal ethics do not have to be as abhorrent as the act in order for justice to be served. Eye for an eye justice is not what our jurisprudence is based on — even though Christianson was certainly flirting with that idea when he made comments like, “We need to protect our communities without political interference.” What he was alluding to in a not-so-subtle way was that the police should be free to use their discretion (without any oversight from lawmakers) to turn anyone over to ICE — all in the name of safety. That’s an astonishingly partisan and radical statement coming from a supposedly non-partisan elected official.

Where I had to really parse what Christianson was claiming, was this point: he made sure to tell reporters that Mendoza had two DUI arrests and “other active warrants” a couple of times. Now, to get a little more in the weeds, in section 7282.5 (G) of the California Values Act, it says that law enforcement can work with ICE if an individual is “Driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs, but only for a conviction that is a felony.” Now, a reporter in the room did ask Christianson if Mendoza was convicted of drunk driving, but the sheriff said, “I don’t know.” Well, how about finding out answers to such questions before going in front of the press to make your case that SB 54 essentially tied law enforcement’s hands in “going after” Mendoza. Were police tailing the guy prior to Singh pulling him over for suspected DUI? Considering Singh didn’t call for backup after pulling Mendoza over, it doesn’t seem like it. From all appearances (again, I don’t know all the facts from the investigation, so this is just speculative), Singh was doing a routine stop based on, perhaps, erratic driving on Mendoza’s part. If SB 54 didn’t exist, would Singh’s first call be to ICE after pulling someone because, what, they fit a profile of what an illegal alien is supposed to look like? Is that in line with the Constitution? If you got pulled over and then immediately detained you because a cop suspected you of something, wouldn’t you be complaining about violations to your Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable searches and seizures? Sure, you may have complied with any requests the officer may have had, but detention, a call to the feds, interviews with law enforcement, lack of charges and the like would more than irk even the most die-hard police supporter. That’s why when the police officials like Christianson say things like “politicians need to stop interfering in police business” with laws like SB 54, one’s immediate response should be to find out why — and not take the police’s view as the only view. Christianson may think the information he has is unimpeachable, but with a little digging, it’s clear that’s not the case.