In the face of a lawsuit from the federal government and a growing revolt by some cities and counties, California’s supporters of the sanctuary state concept demonstrated this weekend that they weren’t going to go down without a fight. Representatives of more than twenty cities and counties around the Golden State gathered to show their support for the policies, filing friend of the court briefings. They were led by former Obama AG Eric Holder, who has been hired by the state to help #RESIST Donald Trump.

The reasons they offered in their defense are the same ones we’ve heard before, but there does seem to be a sense of panic setting in at this point. (LA Times)

In two friend-of-the court briefs filed Friday, former U.S. Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. and Santa Clara County sided with California in a federal lawsuit brought forth by U.S. Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions over its immigration policies. Holder’s brief was filed on behalf of the state Senate, and Santa Clara was joined by 22 other California cities and counties.

Holder argued that entangling state and local agencies with federal immigration enforcement usurps limited resources, blurs lines of accountability and distorts trust between officers and the community. In their own brief, city and county lawyers said the federal government should not dictate how local or state resources are used.

“California has made a judgment that separating civil immigration enforcement, which is a federal duty, from local law enforcement, general policing, makes our community safer,” said Santa Clara County Counsel James R. Williams. “That is something born out by actual evidence.”

While I’m neither an attorney nor someone who plays one on television, I do have to wonder if Holder and his new friends might want to be a bit more cautious when pitching the line about keeping state and federal law enforcement separate. If they want everyone to be acting in a vacuum, perhaps the federal government should just go into California and start busting legal pot stores again. After all, it is a federal crime, right?

The argument about “usurping limited resources” of local police and sheriffs is a silly approach. As one of California’s own sheriffs stated during the recent meeting the President held in Washington, ICE actually frees up local resources by doing the jobs themselves when they are allowed into the jails. And ICE doesn’t ask the local LEOs to go out on the prowl and hunt for illegal aliens. They simply want to have a phone call made when someone they are looking for is booked into a local jail. If that phone call is “usurping too many resources” then you should probably just shut the jail down.

We won’t know what the courts will decide in this matter for a while yet – probably years by the time all the appeals are done. But there’s definitely a backlash against these sanctuary policies growing around the nation. In a related story, a group of Second Amendment supporters rallied in Colorado this weekend to protest a county ordinance banning so-called “assault rifles.” (CBS Denver)

Gun enthusiasts gathered for a rally in Longmont to defend their 2nd Amendment rights, after a city council in the same county recently voted to ban assault weapons.

Some of the rally goers who lined up with signs and flags at the intersection of Nelson Street and Hover Road on Saturday openly carried pistols and semi-automatic rifles as part of the demonstration…

“We will never eradicate evil, but we can defend ourselves from it,” said Lesley Hollywood, organizer with Rally for our Rights.

I won’t be shocked if the federal government loses the first round of this challenge in a California court. But it’s a long road from there to the Supreme Court so we shall see what they have to say eventually.