SB 54 erodes transparency and prevents Sheriff Bill Brown from helping immigration enforcement officers. Many complain Sheriff Brown is being “silent.” He can’t do much due to the restriction imposed by SB54. Here are three reasons why:
(1) ICE does big sweeps because the agency can’t communicate with local authorities due to SB 54. The Sheriff’s hands are tied to being a liaison on the local level. The Truth Act, enacted before SB 54, makes the Sheriff report interactions about people in custody with Federal Immigration Authorities. But, SB54 prevents the Sheriff from reporting to the federal government about illegal immigrants unless the federal government has a warrant for the individual.
(2) When there is an investigation, like Glass House, if not for SB54, the Sheriff could be on scene for public safety support as a liaison to help legitimize searches and provide transparency.
(3) ICE comes in full force because agents can’t call local authorities if there is an incident. If local authorities could assist, ICE would come in smaller numbers.
Politicians like Newsom, Carbajal, Hart, Limon etc., don’t want the public to understand the support of SB 54, as opposed to Truth Act. It undermines “de-escalation” of ICE. They use Sheriff Brown as a “scapegoat.” Politicians are responsible for chaos dealing with immigration.
What is the purpose of the chaos? If things remain in chaos, then they distract people from what is truly going on. And what is going on? Santa Barbara County and city councils have given away $610,000K taxpayer dollars (Goleta City Council gave $100,000, Santa Barbara City Council gave $500,000, and Carpinteria City Council gave $10,000) to nonprofits such as 805undocufund and Immigrant Legal Defense Center. The problem with organizations like these is they are using Santa Barbara County citizens’ hard-earned taxpayer dollars to pay for people who did not go through proper channels to enter the USA.
Second, these NGOs receiving these monies do the bare minimum to help immigrants because most of the money pays high administrative salaries and gets recycled into political campaign funds indirectly. For instance, a contractor paid by a nonprofit for work might then contribute to a candidate. That is why politicians in Santa Barbara County push so hard to protect them.
Citizens of Santa Barbara are being manipulated because of their empathy and big generous hearts. This needs to stop because, like a dysfunctional, unhealthy relationship, we are enabling our elected leaders and local nonprofits to abuse taxpaying citizens, as well as using the nonprofit system to fund criminal behavior.
If these people are able to strongarm our elected Sheriff Bill Brown into supporting this atrocity, we will be in worse trouble than we can imagine. We need to take a stand and rise up against this deception, and we can start now by using our voices and our pens to push back.
Number one, vote differently this next election cycle.
