Comments
“I am, you know, adamantly against illegal immigration.” Hillary Clinton
“We’re a nation of laws, and we're going to enforce the laws.” Tom Homan (Border Czar)
ELIOT'S POV - Who are the real criminals? The easy answer: the thugs, hoodlums, and drug addicts running around Los Angeles, creating havoc. However, the real criminals are the enablers of these less-than-upstanding citizens. The actual criminality resides within the Board of Supervisors (We’re soft on Crime Vote for Us™), the DEI (Do Expect Incompetence) City Council, and that smiling female of continuous virtue signaling, Mayor Bass. These so-called leaders have failed at every metric regarding the quality-of-life metrics and have turned LA into a dystopian nightmare, unfit to bring up children here.
For far too long, the Los Angeles City Council (LACC) and the five progressive harpies on the Board of Supervisors have been obsessed with helping the homeless in the most permissive and ineffective manner. The exact number of the billions of dollars squandered and where it went is unknown despite a federal judge demanding accountability via an audit.
Taking their parasitic empathy one giant step further, the LACC officially voted to declare Los Angeles a Sanctuary City on November 18th. As ABC News reported, the LACC voted 13-0 to approve the law, which codifies protections for migrants in the city and illegally closes a gap in past policies by prohibiting the direct or indirect sharing of data with federal immigration authorities.
This grandstanding vote shows that the City Council is oblivious to the current mood of the voting public. Clearly, the LACC is saying elections don’t matter, and the fact that Los Angeles and all of California voted in favor of public safety is a mere trifle to be brushed aside—a slap in the face to the electorate. An elected official's first duty is to ensure that the public is safe.
What practical reason does the LACC have to shelter criminal border jumpers? This is a no-win situation for our budget and the rule of law. Federal law, specifically 8 U.S.C. § 1373, mandates that state and local governments cannot prohibit or restrict agencies or officials from sending or receiving information regarding immigration status to or from federal immigration authorities. President-Elect Trump’s advisors are already exploring ways to strip Federal Resources from sanctuary cities that refuse to assist with deportations. In 2024, LA received over $1.1 billion in Federal Funds. It would be very grim if that funding goes away, as we have a $476,000,000 deficit.
Who exactly voted for this? Not the people who voted for Proposition 36 or fired George Gascón. Los Angeles’s failure to cooperate with the Federal Government to remove known felons and threats to public safety shows that the City's leaders are not concerned with public safety and support lawless behavior. We cannot afford to wait on this situation. Not doing everything possible to increase public safety should be, at the minimum, a reason to recall or vote the offending politicians from office.
It is a felony to enter the country illegally. It's also a felony to harbor these fugitives. The council voted 13-0 to approve a new law, which codifies protections for migrants in the country illegally and closes a gap in past policies by prohibiting the direct or indirect sharing of data with federal immigration authorities. With all those lawyers in City Hall, it's amazing that they think a local jurisdiction can trump Federal Law.
State law SB 54, also known as the California Values Act, prevents State law enforcement from cooperating with federal immigration authorities in all manner of places, including schools, hospitals, churches, courthouses, and libraries. The new Border Czar will probably take Governor Hair Gel (Newson) to Federal Court and have SB 54 declared unconstitutional under the Federal Supremacy Clause.
Recommended reading for Mayor Bass, the Supervisors, and the City Council includes 8 USC Sec. 1324 et al. …especially 1 A (iii) and 2 B (iii). Just because Biden and Harris opened the border does not mean there was a legal framework for millions of undocumented people to come on in. These undocumented have violated Section 8 U.S.C. § 1325. The City Council might be guilty of bringing in and harboring certain Aliens 8 U.S.C. § 1324 and Conspiracy to Commit Offense or to Defraud the United States (18 U.S.C. § 371).
It is likely that sometime in the first quarter of 2025, border Czar Tom Homan will be requesting the Justice Department's authority to charge officials with obstruction and harboring if they refuse to hand over illegal border crossers in their custody. Note that the first illegal aliens to be removed will be the ones who have compiled a lengthy criminal record. It will be very instructive for our Mayor and other City officialdom to hob knob in the can with their favored class of non-citizens.
There are so many ways that illegal immigration harms the average citizen in LA, and it's not just through outright illegal activity, theft, smuggling drugs, or any other form of property crime:
Illegal immigration has economic impacts, such as wage depression, particularly for low-skilled workers. Undocumented workers increase the labor supply, leading to lower wages for jobs that require less formal education or skills. This can have harmful effects on public spending due to increased outlays on services like education, health, and welfare benefits, especially when undocumented immigrants utilize these services. This leads to overcrowding and longer wait times for the citizens who are paid for them. Higher deficits and taxes are one of the investable outcomes of unbridled mass migration.
This increase in population contributes to higher housing costs, which crowd out and affect affordability for citizens and legal residents. So many people in Los Angeles bemoaned that their children can't afford to live here. Well, this is another reason why we should put a stop to this title wave of undocumented people crowding our city. Let people who have an entitlement—meaning American citizens born here and legal immigrants—have the first crack at the American dream.
It's hard to document exactly how much crime is done by undocumented immigrants because the powers that be have a vested interest in underreporting their crimes. We all know that crime rates in Los Angeles have been soaring for a long time, and it is certainly more than likely that the undocumented are responsible for their fair share of the crime wave we are all suffering from.
More than 18,000,000 illegal aliens of military age have crossed the border. Several hundred thousand of them are known felons in their home countries. Exactly how many terrorists have snuck across the border is unknown, but hundreds have been apprehended. 55,000 Chinese nationals came across, according to the latest figures, who are only here because the Chinese Communist Party wants them here. For what purpose they are here as of this writing remains unknown. 300,000 plus children who have crossed the border are missing. Have they been sold to pedophiles, or are they being forced to work at abdominal tasks?
Illegal immigration leads to cultural tensions or feelings of displacement among the native populations. It is also well known that illegal immigrants who are only here usually don't want to assimilate into society at the same rate as legal immigrants. This can impact social harmony and change the culture and national identity. It also causes a lot of resentment among legal immigrants who have waited years to emigrate to the US and get their green cards legally.
Los Angeles harbors almost 1,000,000 illegals, the most in the nation. They are ruining the quality of life in LA, making things more expensive and crowded. The illegals drag down the educational environment and are a threat to public health and safety. Some illegals are suspected of engaging in crime tourism and have targeted high-end neighborhoods all over LA. According to Grok AI, Los Angeles County and City combined could spend Billions of dollars a year. Add $ Billion for the so-called homeless, and presto, there’s no money, only a giant sucking sound as these parasitical politicians ask yet again for more of your money.
Illegal immigration mocks the rule of law. Societies function under agreed-upon rules, and immigration laws are part of that framework. When these laws are broken, the legal structure and framework that ensures order and fairness are disregarded; therefore, we become a society that is no longer based on rules and laws. This is one reason why LA has become a low-trust society.
It is abhorrent that we have billions of dollars slushing around for people who aren't citizens, for homeless street addicts, and $1,000,000 apartments for people who didn’t earn it. Because all that money is misdirected and not utilized correctly, we can't have safe mass transportation, decent roads, good schools, or an adequate police force. LA desires security and safety and doesn’t want to be taxed into oblivion. While the rest of the nation awakens from the woke lunacy of the last four years, LA’s leaders are doubling down on the failed liberal policies.
The LACC’s actions directly violate federal law and their sworn oath of office, which states that they will uphold the Constitution of the United States. The LACC has also abandoned its duty to uphold public safety and the rule of law.
For all these reasons detailed herein, I urge the City Council and the Board of Supervisors to resign their positions forthwith and hold new snap elections on paper ballots, all tallied in one day to get an honest count. (It should not take two weeks to get a final tally, as we have seen in our recent election in several districts in California) LA’s stakeholders do not want our social policies dictated to us by out-of-touch politicians with an agenda that does not benefit the average Los Angeles citizen struggling to keep their life, finances, and sanity together.
(Eliot Cohen has been on the Neighborhood Council, serves on the Van Nuys Airport Citizens Advisory Council, is on the Board of Homeowners of Encino, and was the president of HOME for over seven years. Eliot retired after a 35-year career on Wall Street. Eliot is a critic of the stinking thinking of the bureaucrats and politicians that run the County, the State, and the City. Eliot and his wife divide their time between L.A. and Baja Norte, Mexico.)
