An increasing number of local governments within California are standing against the efforts by their own state to resist the immigration crackdown pursued by the Trump administration, with political experts seeing politics in play even as Republicans attempt to get voters fired up in a state where the Democrats normally reign supreme.
Ever since the Department of Justice, led by Attorney General Jeff Sessions, sued California in March because of their sanctuary state law limiting the ways in which police could cooperate with federal immigration agents, around a dozen local governments have elected either to support or join the lawsuit against the state’s current position, including the Board of Supervisors of Orange County, which contains over three million people.
This week will see yet more action, with leaders of Los Alamitos, another city in Orange County, set to vote on a proposed law that would exempt the community from state law, and the San Diego County Board of Supervisors is meeting on Tuesday to discuss the possibility of joining the lawsuit spearheaded by the Trump administration. President Donald Trump’s 2016 election campaign resulted in immigration becoming a hotter topic than ever in the US but has long been a contentious issue for California.
Republicans in California have been less strident on the issue for many years, but members of the party, which has become almost irrelevant at a state level, have been energized by the lawsuit and the backlash is beginning to spread beyond the former GOP stronghold of Orange County.