Is a red wave coming to California? It looks like the tide might be turning for conservatives there. Several counties have voted against the sanctuary law. One particular city’s mayor is a child of Japanese-American immigrants who strongly believes immigration should be done the right way:
NPR reports:
At last count, nearly a dozen local governments in California have voted to oppose what is known as the state’s “sanctuary law” — Senate Bill 54 — escalating tensions over the long-divisive issue of illegal immigration in the Golden State.
The law, passed last year, aims to protect some immigrants in the country illegally by limiting cooperation between local law enforcement and federal immigration authorities.
California is believed to have the largest population of undocumented immigrants, and the state is on the front lines of the resistance to the Trump administration. But the recent wave of opposition to California’s opposition to the administration is turning some heads.
Much of it began in the small Orange County suburb of Los Alamitos, where the city council passed a measure last month to opt out of the “sanctuary” law.
“I don’t like the direction California is going” says Warren Kusumoto, mayor pro tem of the city.
Kusumoto decided to draft the initiative because he said Los Alamitos is caught in the middle of a national political fight and is being asked to work under conflicting laws. The small city of 11,000 also has close economic ties to the federal government. It is home to several companies with large federal contracts as well as a U.S. military base.
But there are also bigger symbolic reasons at play. Kusumoto is frustrated more broadly with state policies on everything from taxes to immigration.
“As a state, we’ve squandered away what the Greatest Generation provided for us,” he says.
Kusumoto is a Republican and Japanese-American — in his words, a product of immigrants.
Via Fox News:
In a state consumed by conservation and environmental issues, one highly endangered species has long gone unnoticed and unprotected – the California Conservative. Is it still possible to rescue them from the brink of extinction? Can their numbers be revived? And can they thrive here once again?
While the nation continues to view California as a homogeneous voting block of individuals in lock step with an increasingly progressive liberal agenda, for Common Sense Californians up and down the left coast state, there’s a sense that a different tide is rising.
The ripple began in Los Alamitos where the city council voted to opt out of California’s sanctuary law. And it was followed by Orange County who voted to join the U.S. Department of Justice in challenging the state’s sanctuary city laws. This decision was echoed by the city of Escondido and later this month San Diego County will also vote to join their ranks in this federal lawsuit. Other municipalities are lining up to consider doing the same.
California has always been the tip of the spear. Often the genesis of art, influence, ideas, style and entertainment, we also take the lead in ways that are less admirable with high state tax, high gas tax, high costs of living and housing, an out of control homeless problem in our urban areas, declining test scores in schools, increasingly inaccessible and cost-prohibitive health care, and many of our major cities often appear on lists of the least-livable cities in the U.S.
