Grassroots Group Begins Filing to Defund CA Sanctuary Cities

by MICHELLE MOONS
3 Jun 2017
975 comments

Initial papers have been filed as part of an effort to take action at a local level to defund California sanctuary cities one by one starting in the city of Cudahy.

Federal officials have repeatedly warned sanctuary cities that their federal funds could cease if they refuse to cooperate with federal immigration law. While letters have been issued the process has yet to deprive sanctuary cities of funds based on their sanctuary status.

This past Tuesday Joseph Turner filed paperwork to launch an initiative that could deprive the city of Cudahy of 13.5 percent of their general revenue funds. Turner told Breitbart News that this is part of a larger effort to defund sanctuary cities. He filed the new initiative under Prop 218 as a utility tax repeal.

Turner told the local Fox11 News that his effort could “attack 13.5 percent of their revenue base” for a mere “couple hundred bucks and less than a hundred signatures.”

He told Breitbart News that by filing under 218 he only needs to gather 62 signatures from Cudahy voters. It could take 3-4 weeks before signature gathering begins, but once it does Turner will have 180 days to gather the 62 Cudahy voter signatures.

Turner plans to file the next initiative in Huntington Park, California. He said there he would need around 176 signatures. Huntington Park’s city council went so far as to appoint illegal aliens to their city commissions in 2015 and the backlash from members of the community made national news.

Turner founded the group American Children First after Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential election, according to the organization’s website. The site states, “He recognized the short window of opportunity that exists to ensure that promises made on the issues of illegal immigration, border security, and trade are kept.”

Cudahy city documents reveal that the city council voted on January 6, 2015 to adopt a resolution declaring Cudahy as a “Sanctuary City for Immigrants”. The small city contracts with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department for their policing, according to Fox11. Cudahy Council member Jack Guerrero told the outlet that the city’s sanctuary designation is symbolic.

In late March, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions issued a stern warning to sanctuary cities from the White House briefing room. Sessions announced that cities which continually refuse “to detain known felons on federal detainer requests” or otherwise family to comply with federal immigration laws.

“In a single week, there were more than 200 instances of jurisdictions refusing to honor ICE detainer requests with respect to individuals charged or convicted of a serious crime. The charges and convictions against these aliens include: drug trafficking, hit and run, rape, sex offenses against a child and even murder,” said Sessions, who called for the halt of sanctuary city policies.

Then in April, Sessions revealed that he had issued a letter to 10 sanctuary cities with a direct warning that failure to respond could result in loss of federal funds. He said that the Obama Administration issued notices insisting compliance with federal law passed several years ago. He said the 10 cities had received letters under the Obama Administration just a year ago

In May the Attorney General issued a memo defining a sanctuary city in connection with President Donald Trump’s January executive order on the issue.

Turner’s plan is to continue to replicate the initiative effort in other California sanctuary cities. He launched an initiative back in 2005 and 2006 that was replicated in other parts of the country. His prior efforts on the issue of illegal immigration were profiled in the Wall Street Journal in 2006. He hopes this effort could see similar success, inspiring Americans in other states to start similar efforts and initiatives where states allow them.

http://www.breitbart.com/california/...ctuary-cities/

WOW!! That is so cool!! GO JOE GO!!! Everyone in California, help Joe Turner do this!! Please!!

Thank you Judy and Jean.

Fighting like hell to save our nation out here in SoCal. Thanks for helping to spread the word. I am really enjoying this highly amusing campaign because the opposition is having a really hard time figuring out what sort of narrative they want to peddle.

You mean the white racist wants to lower taxes for hardworking legal and illegal residents of Cudahy...a city that is 96% Hispanic? LOL

Hang in there Joe! We are going to reintroduce you and your new organization to our ALIPAC networks soon my friend.

W

Welcome AmericanChildrenFirst, glad you found us and sincere good luck.

Related

This group wants to bar children in the U.S. illegally from attending some schools

A Group Called American Children First Wants to Defund Sanctuary Cities in California

TUESDAY, JUNE 6, 2017 AT 1:02 P.M.

BY JASON MCGAHAN

A self-identified "American Nationalist" group based in Torrance is spearheading an effort to defund sanctuary cities in California. Its first target is an incorporated area of southeast L.A. with one of the largest percentage of Latino residents in the county, many of whom are immigrants.

And some residents fear it could actually happen.

The group, American Children First, says its initiative in the city of Cudahy is part of a broader strategy — known as "Operation Defund Sanctuary Cities" — to use ballot measures to eliminate sources of revenue to cities throughout California that, like Cudahy, have declared themselves sanctuaries for residents who are in the country illegally.

In a statement emailed to the L.A. Weekly, Joseph Turner, the founder of American Children First, called the concept and existence of sanctuary cities "offensive to me as an American citizen."

"It disgusts me that elected officials are willing to endanger the lives of American citizens by not cooperating with federal authorities," Turner said. "I believe these elected officials are committing acts of treason and that they should be held criminally and civilly liable for the crimes these illegal aliens commit against Americans."

Guillermo Torres, a senior organizer with Clergy & Laity United for Economic Justice of Los Angeles who works with a coalition advocating for L.A. City Council to pass a sanctuary city ordinance, says American Children First's initiative is a long shot.

"I don't see why someone would take such an initiative in their own city to defund themselves," Torres says.

But immigration rights advocate Silvia Merlos, who was raised in Cudahy, says the situation is urgent; the city's small size and the sympathetic ear of at least one city councilman make it a suitable site as a test-case for American Children First's strategy.

Merlos, whose mother is a Salvadoran immigrant, is among the Southeast L.A. residents who have formed an ad hoc group called the Defend Movement, which opposes American Children First and its plan. She says American Children First is one of several "ultra-patriot" groups active in the area, whose members have been arriving in large numbers to disrupt town halls and city council meetings in southeast L.A.

"We have people ready to defend our city and stand up against this group," Merlos says. "We are a community definitely under attack right now."

Cudahy, a tiny city nestled against the western shore of the L.A. River in southeast L.A., declared itself a sanctuary city for undocumented immigrants a year ago.

Cudahy is the second smallest city in L.A. County, with a population density that is one of the highest in the country — 24,000 residents live on the 1.2 square miles within the city limits. The population of Cudahy is 96 percent Latino, and the 2000 U.S. Census found it had the sixth highest percentage of Latino residents of any city or neighborhood in L.A. County.

Of the sanctuary city designation, Cudahy City Councilman Cristian Markovich told the San Diego Union-Tribune it was a largely symbolic and nonbinding gesture meant to encourage the city's large immigrant population to cooperate with the police without fear of being reported to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Cudahy is one of 150 cities in California that draw a significant portion of its general fund budget from a tax on the utility bills of their residents and businesses — revenue that American Children First seeks to eliminate as punishment for limiting the cooperation of local police with federal immigration enforcement.

In Cudahy, the tax on utility bills will generate slightly more than $1 million in revenue for Cudahy this year — an amount that is 13.5 percent of the city's total general fund revenue.

Turner, the founder of American Children First, says the tax is subject to voter-approved repeal under the provisions of Proposition 218, a constitutional amendment approved in 1996 giving residents the power to challenge certain revenue-raising measures of local government.

The Cudahy City Attorney's Office has 15 days to qualify the anti-sanctuary-city measure, then American Children First will have 180 days to gather the mere 62 signatures needed from Cudahy voters to place the repeal measure on the ballot.

Turner says he anticipates the grassroots campaign will resonate with working and lower class residents of Cudahy who struggle to make ends meet and who are receptive to calls for tax relief — whether or not they share the campaign's underlying animosity for sanctuary cities.

Turner's bio states that he was the founder of Save Our State, an "anti-illegal immigration group," and that he was the author of the City of San Bernardino Illegal Immigration Relief Act in 2005, a measure that would have barred landlords from renting to immigrants in the country illegally and prohibited business owners from receiving permits if they employed them. The measure failed when a San Bernardino County Superior Court judge ruled Turner did not collect enough signatures to qualify the measure for the city ballot.

http://www.laweekly.com/news/america...cities-8296800