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Don Gaetz, Columnist 12:00 p.m. CT May 20, 2017

Don Gaetz(Photo: Don Gaetz)

Texas did it. The Lone Star State passed a law that prohibits local governments from establishing sanctuaries for illegal aliens and penalizes local officials if criminals protected by sanctuary policies cause harm to people or property.

Everyone who can see Al Sharpton from where you sit on the political spectrum please breathe in a brown paper bag. Calm yourselves. This isnt about deportation patrols or profiling Muslims or banning travel from countries rife with terrorists. It isnt even about The Wall. So find a safe space and take a breath. Or, if youre John Morgan, take a toke and pass the joint.

Heres the question before us: should a county or city be able to pick and choose which federal laws it wants to abide by and whether and when to accept federal authority? Before you answer, lets roll the reel back and change the names and the circumstances but not the constitutional issue.

One hundred years ago Republicans in Congress were trying to pass a bill which would penalize counties which failed to enact anti-lynching ordinances. Democrats objected, saying Southern jurisdictions should be allowed to deal with lynching their own way, sort of a sanctuary policy. Florida, including right here in Five Flags, was dealing with it in our way by undertaking more lynchings per capita than any other state.

When Arkansas refused to acknowledge the authority of federal de-segregation rulings, should President Eisenhower have recognized Little Rock as a sanctuary instead of sending federal troops to escort those nine Black children to school?

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Was it OK in January, 2017, for Jacksonville to establish itself as a sanctuary where the Americans for Disabilities Act wouldnt be enforced, thereby keeping disabled combat veterans out of housing in a gentrifying neighborhood? Should the Department of Justice have minded their own business or dropped the federal hammer?

How about consumer protection laws? Voting rights laws? Freedom of speech and, oh God, freedom of the press? You dont think there would be school boards or city councils or university boards that would welcome the chance to create sanctuaries from the nettlesome nagging of the media?

You get the idea. Lets pause to appreciate the irony. Why is it fashionable for mayors to create sanctuaries for illegal aliens who commit serious crimes? What makes it ennobling to advertise your city as a place where convicted criminals are welcome to roam loose so long as they have violated immigration laws? What gymnastics of logic and the law justify local sanctuaries of any kind from any federal jurisdiction? The answer, of course, is Trump.

President Obama deported more illegals than any other chief executive in American history. The ACLU didnt even clear its throat. But now because its Trump, the Left has succumbed, as it often does, to selective indignation.

Our liberal friends would be horrified, and justly so, if a state legislator proposed that Florida cities or counties or universities be allowed to set themselves apart as sanctuaries that disregard good federal laws. Not a whisper of protest would be heard if municipal satraps were held personally liable, shamed, shunned and run out of office for non-cooperation with federal enforcement of laws governing race, disability, consumer protection, voting rights and the First Amendment.

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But standing arms folded athwart the city limits of San Francisco or New York City or Chicago or thirty Florida counties, if the ACLU is to be believed, celebrates a politician as a profile in courage so long as hes flaunting Trumps enforcement of federal immigration laws. From their perches in the hereafter, North Floridas infamous Pork Chop Gang must be slapping their knees and pouring up another bourbon and branch in tribute to the whole notion of sanctuary cities. What an imaginative iteration of states rights!

Trumps Justice Department isnt sifting through records at your childs elementary school looking for dreamers. If they tried, it would require subpoenas issued by judges. Jeff Sessions isnt busting down doors in Hispanic neighborhoods checking peoples citizenship status. If he tried, that would require warrants. But none of that is happening.

The Trump Administrations focus is finding and deporting those illegals who are being sought for or who have been convicted of serious crimes. Trumps DOJ is looking for thugs, drug dealers, rapists, violators of people and property bad hombres, to borrow a phrase who are in this country illegally, who were deported but returned, and who violate other laws. The President and the Attorney General are on the hunt for MS-13, the murderous gang of illegals that terrorizes minority neighborhoods in major US cities. Trump wants them out.

Sessions says if cities and counties declare themselves sanctuaries from enforcement of federal laws then DOJ will cut their federal grants. Actually, thats pretty mild. Eisenhower sent soldiers with bayonets to enforce federal law. So did President Kennedy. When Pennsylvania farmers wouldnt pay federal taxes on whiskey, President Washington suited up and led an army into the field to put down the recalcitrance.

Im for the application of reason. The Justice Department needs to quietly meet with each sanctuary city leader and read them the supremacy clause in the Constitution, remind them that Lee surrendered to Grant not the other way around and explain that the object of federal action is deporting dangerous thugs not hunting music students overstaying their visas. That will work on at least some local officials, like the Mayor of Miami who recently re-checked his oath of office and decided against being a sanctuary.

Im also for the fierce clash of ideas. Let those who believe in open borders or porous borders or knee-high walls or immigration reform bring their proposals into the public square and the halls of Congress. Lets debate and decide the best way to secure our sovereignty and still get our blueberries picked.

But, in the end, there should be no place in America where local politicians or local police decide for themselves whose rights should be upheld and which federal laws should be enforced. There should be no sanctuary from equal justice under the law.

Don Gaetz is the former president of the Florida State Senate.Contact Gaetz at djgaetz1@gmail.com.

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