California Democrats have done everything possible to protect illegal alien criminals from deportation, but the 2024 election shows that they no longer have the support of the public.
By Daniel Greenfield, Frontpage Magazine
Eight percent of Los Angeles County is illegal. This is where 800,000 illegal aliens out of an estimated 3 million statewide (the real numbers are likely much higher) have been harbored.
And that may be about to change.
In no county and state has the political power of the Democrats been as closely tied to open borders as in Los Angeles County and California. Flipping California convinced the Democrats to tie their national fortunes to mass migration and for a while it seemed to be working.
Biden’s open borders team, from Border Czar Kamala Harris to Homeland Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and USCIS director Ur Mendoza Jaddou, were not only Californians, but typical products of its diverse checkbox political class who rejected the idea of national borders.
California deportations had sharply dropped off after the state began implementing pro-illegal and pro-crime laws in 2014, falling from a high of nearly 100,000 to less than 4,000 in 2024.
With the California Values Act (SB 54) blocking law enforcement from cooperating with federal immigration authorities in place, the first Trump administration struggled to bring deportations up to around 30,000 a year and under Biden deportations effectively disappeared in California.
But the 2024 election may be about to crack the nation’s worst sanctuary state, county, and city.
If Kamala had won, she would have been the first White House Democrat from California, but instead California Democrats in the largest illegal alien county in the country are panicking.
The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors introduced a motion declaring that their 800,000 illegal alien base is “crucial to our economy, workforce and cultural diversity.” The board moved to create a Department of Immigrant Affairs to resist federal immigration policies.
Supervisors Hilda Solis fumed that Trump had created a “deep sense of instability” for illegals while Janice Hahn warned of the past “devastating impact” of enforcing laws on illegal aliens.
LA County is already a ‘sanctuary county’ and bans county sheriffs from turning over illegal alien criminals to federal immigration authorities.
The municipality of Los Angeles is also moving to impose a ‘sanctuary city’ law that will ban the LAPD and city officials from cooperating with the federal government.
Councilman Bob Blumenfeld, who represents a district with illegal aliens, claimed that LA is “hardening our defenses” in the face of federal immigration enforcement.
“The city of Los Angeles will protect all Angelenos,” Mayor Karen Bass claimed. ”Many of the immigrant protections here in Los Angeles have been in place for decades. Today’s action reinforces our commitment to protect our immigrant community and to keep all Angelenos safe.”
Gov. Gavin Newsom had announced a special session to “Trump-proof” California. While the session was heavily hyped, Newsom, a prospective presidential candidate in 2028, used it to plead for money to engage in lawfare against the incoming administration.
Newsom’s special session proclamation however made little mention of illegal aliens or resisting deportations.
“We’ve thought about all the possibilities, and have prepared for every one of them and are ready to take action when there’s any unlawful activity,” Attorney General Rob Bonta, who had been expecting a spot in Kamala’s cabinet, boasted that he was preparing for “a full frontal assault on our immigrant communities.” Mostly though he’s preparing to run for governor.
California has long since functioned as an illegal alien state and under Gov. Newsom rolled out measures meant to block immigration enforcement by the state’s law-abiding counties and areas.
Under California’s illegal laws, local law enforcement officers can be charged with a felony and lose their pensions for lawfully working with federal immigration authorities.
That will be the first obstacle for the Trump administration, but not the last. And yet Trump may have a surprising base of support for his efforts in the state from its Latino population.
California Democrats preparing to go to war with Trump and the majority of Americans who support the mass deportation of illegal aliens are convinced that it’s still the 90s and that the state’s large Latino population will stand with them, but that may no longer be the case.
Despite some of the worst election rigging in the state with weeks of vote counting that once again saw Republican and moderate candidates toppled by ‘late-arriving’ ballot harvester votes, Trump’s numbers improved in virtually every majority Latino county in the state.
A CalMatters analysis actually showed that “counties with a higher share of Latino population swung further toward Trump” and a recent New York Times story warned that Trump’s victory in Fresno County reflected growing Latino support for a crackdown on open borders migration.
Democrats tried to rally opposition to Proposition 36 which would ‘recriminalize’ crime by warning, among other things, that it would lead to more deportations of illegal alien criminals.
Despite that, 68% of California voters backed Prop 36 putting law and order ahead of illegals.
Polls show that a majority of Californians believe that the border is in a state of crisis and with Latino support weakening, California Democrats are picking a battle with no backing.
Despite the tough talk from Gov. Newsom and AG Bonta who are looking to move up, California Democrats appear nervous about an upcoming showdown.
Newsom has been notably less enthusiastic about Democrat legislative proposals to provide unemployment and subsidies for illegal aliens to buy houses and get phone discounts.
California is in a difficult financial situation and Newsom may have sensed that changing public sentiments no longer favor illegal aliens.
Newsom’s presidential ambitions may leave California Democrats leaderless when fighting for illegal aliens. California Democrats built up a dubious infrastructure of laws that have never really been tested and the coming legal clashes may determine the ilegality of illegal alien ‘sanctuaries’ beginning with California’s extensive criminal justice system.
California has blocked the release of transparent information about its illegal alien criminal population, but past data analyzed by the Federation for American Immigration Reform showed that “illegals were more than twice as likely to be in prison in California” and a GAO report documented that the “average criminal illegal alien in California has six convictions”.
And this is where the first wave of the struggle over California’s illegal alien population will be.
California Democrats have done everything possible to protect illegal alien criminals from deportation, but the 2024 election shows that they no longer have the support of the public.
Is California really prepared to go to war to keep illegal alien murderers and rapists in America?