This past Tuesday, Santa Barbara County supervisors discussed two items that show how out of touch many of our elected officials are as it affects public safety.
One of these items delved into a report indicating that three illegal aliens who have been in our county jail over 20 times each have not been deported! There were several others who had beaten their wives and children who were not deported, not to mention another who committed rape, a perv who was guilty of indecent exposure and several others with multiple convictions for driving under the influence.
All told, a mere six illegal aliens were handed over to ICE (the federal department of Immigration Customs Enforcement) for their crimes in 2021. Another 33 illegal aliens who were arrested and jailed here locally nearly 200 times in the aggregate were let back onto our streets, even though they too could have been picked up by ICE, to be deported.
The report had to do with the so-called California Trust, Truth and Values Acts, passed by our state Legislature, all three of which pertain to shielding illegal aliens who commit crimes from being reported to, and deported by, ICE. Our state Legislature by passing these laws have broken our trust, obfuscated the truth and violated our values while undermining public safety. That is, Californians no longer have a realistic expectation to be safe in their community.
Moreover, it is an insult to injury for our citizenry to be victimized by somebody who shouldn’t be in this country to begin with.
Unfortunately, the don’t-ask, don’t-tell (as it affects residency status) and the don’t-report, don’t-deport policy in place as it affects criminals who are undocumented means the public will never be apprised of how many more crimes have been committed by these people. The fact that only six were picked up by ICE reflects the fact the Biden administration priorities are abysmal as it relates to the safety of our community.
The other item the board discussed dealt with chronic overtime charges incurred by the Sheriff’s Office, which the supervisors resent having to pay for.
Whereas, the supervisors give tacit acknowledgment that law enforcement nationwide is having recruiting and retention problems, nevertheless they fall woefully short in admitting that they themselves are the root cause of this problem. How so? Because of their tacit woke support for various aspects of the so-called criminal justice reform movement, which is a euphemism for defunding the police and eliminating incarceration as much as possible as a deterrent to criminal behavior.
The efforts to treat every criminal as if they are the victim and to bend over backward to ensure they don’t go to jail are multitudinous in California. These efforts include downgrading violent felonies to misdemeanors and other measures that have served to completely demoralize law enforcement at all levels, including cops and prosecutors.
The bottom line? Cops know that woke Democratic politicians, who in California and Washington, D.C., are abounding, no longer have their back. Instead of cuffing the perps, we are tying the hands of law enforcement, including ICE. All the while, cops are being ambushed on the streets of America on a routine basis. Hence, some of our local law enforcement agencies have a 20% employee vacancy rate!
There is no doubt that our criminal justice system is in a crisis, and part of that crisis is further exacerbated by the Biden administration’s open border policy, which has allowed several million people to invade our country.
Meanwhile, we are preventing law enforcement from throwing some very bad actors back across that border including would-be terrorists and members of international crime syndicates, who present a clear and present danger to America.
Andy Caldwell is the COLAB executive director and host of “The Andy Caldwell Show,” airing 3 to 5 p.m. weekdays on KZSB AM 1290, the News-Press radio station.
