The Santa Clarita City Council voted this week to join the Trump Administration's effort to overturn California laws that block or interfere with federal immigration enforcement. In addition to supporting the Administration's lawsuit, the council publicly condemned California's sanctuary policy, in a 5-0 vote against SB54.
The council’s unanimous vote to end SB54, which prohibits state and local law enforcement from fully cooperating with federal immigration authorities, makes Santa Clarita the first city in Los Angeles county to take an official position in opposition to the sanctuary law.
Santa Clarita City Councilman Bob Kellar made a strong statement against California’s sanctuary policies back in March.
"I feel very strongly that this whole thing of having a sanctuary state and sanctuary cities is ridiculous," Kellar said. "We are putting our American citizens at additional risk and there's no question about this — it's costing our state ungodly billions of dollars."
The City’s decision comes a month after three California cities in Orange County, Newport Beach, Orange, and Westminster, along with the Orange County Board of Supervisors voted to join the Trump Administration's effort to overturn California’s sanctuary laws.
Santa Clarita is counted among 18 states and local governments -- Los Alamitos, Calif., Orange County, Los Alamitos, Texas, Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina and West Virginia -- that filed to join the Trump Administration's lawsuit in March.
For more on this story, see the Los Angeles Times.
