[Jonathan Easley and Alexis Simendinger]
The president on Thursday said blue-state Californians are moving closer to his thinking about the security risks of defying Washington with policies that offer safe-harbors to undocumented immigrants in cities. And he may be right.
“If you look at what’s happening in California with sanctuary cities — people are really going the opposite way. They don’t want sanctuary cities,” Trump told reporters while traveling in Florida. “There’s a little bit of a revolution going on in California.”
A large academic study of California public opinion (2,440 respondents), conducted in December and reported this week, found that 59 percent of adults in the state believe it’s important to increase deportations of undocumented people.
Trump and the Justice Department continue to battle Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown and other California politicians over the administration’s tough immigration enforcement policies, Trump’s wall, and the president’s recent call-up of National Guard to beef up border security.
DOJ lost a major sanctuary city case Thursday. The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a lower court ruling, preventing the Trump administration from denying grant funds to sanctuary cities nationwide. (BuzzFeed)
The president threatened on Thursday to withdraw federal funding for California Guardsmen, just as the Pentagon approved the governor’s terms.
