Why Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions' & DOJ's Lawsuit Against California Over Sanctuary Cities Is Potentially DISASTROUS

Well, hell... Pardon my French, but apparently, Attorney General Jeff Sessions had a nightmare that convinced him that he had to, you know... DO his job as attorney general... and what does he start with? Suing California over sanctuary cities.

Now, I'm going to be very clear in saying that I want more secure borders and that there should be at least some consequences for California and the mayors and other officials therein which have not only sheltered undocumented and illegal immigrants, but warned those guilty of crimes when the feds were about to come after them and legally threatened employers with punishment should they cooperate in any way with the federal government under the Trump administration's efforts to detain and deport illegal immigrants, even those that have committed other crimes. With that said, I think those consequences should be doled out very carefully and only on a case-by-case basis .I disagree with what I'm hearing from pundits at Fox News in that I think this has the potential to turn into both a political and economic disaster, and here's why.

1. Whatever one's opinions on the matter, illegal immigration is not America's most pressing problem right now. At the very least, there other equally or more important matters on which the government could more effectively successfully act. As important an issue as immigration is or will be in the near future, it is one that needs comprehensive reform - bipartisan cooperation in the passing of legislation, not a lawsuit pitting the federal government against one of its biggest states and the fifth-largest-economy in the world. Even with gangs like MS13 and the shootings at the border that keep getting referenced, these problems are arguably as or more relevant to issues like gun and drug trafficking as to immigration, and as for the immigrants, themselves - on the whole - I just don't they present enough of a clear and urgent threat to warrant what Sessions is doing. At the very least, I don't think the GOP is going to be as successful at presenting them as great threats as it thinks it will and, in my opinion, should not be gambling in this way.

2. Again, California is the third largest state in the union with a massive economic footprint and has actually been threatening and/or asking to secede from the U.S. since before Donald Trump ever decided to run for office. Right or wrong, we've also long-since seen proof that judges and other state and court officials can successfully turn their activism into enforceable law regardless of the stances and desires of the Federal government. Besides the resources this state could bring to bear to fight the feds all on its own, it has a number of other, sometimes comparably wealthy and powerful states such as Illinois and New York that have stood in solidarity with each other on this issue - galvanized in large part, I think, by their mutual hatred of Trump and everything for which they believe he and his election stands. Were they to come to California's aid, I think Governor Brown is right when he says that it could potentially outlive the Trump administration, itself, even if Trump were to somehow get reelected. Like me, my fellow GOP voters are already upset about the time and energy that is arguably being wasted on the ongoing Mueller investigation, which has managed to hit just about everyone but its biggest intended target: President Donald J. Trump. At the moment, that's a fact whether you think Trump is guilty or innocent or that he will more clearly be incriminated sooner or later or not. We're already on the verge of seeing some of the perceived good of the administration's recent tax bill potentially undone by Trump's proposed tariffs, which are arguably being fought more more vigorously by Republicans (like outgoing economic adviser Gary Cohn, I think) than by Democrats, which is something that shouldn't be taken lightly by any Republican simply because they think the House Majority Leader and others are RINOs, "elites," or residents of the "swamp" that Trump is supposedly in the process of draining. However much we think is being "wasted" by the ongoing Mueller investigation could become nothing compared with what Sessions' lawsuit has the potential to become and to cost.

3. Politically, this suit could be even worse for coming right before the first midterm election since Trump's inauguration. Historically speaking, parties that hold the White House generally see a few losses during the first midterms, but as potent as Trump's unpopularity can be among conservatives and liberals, alike, we could wind up seeing a repeat of 2006, which was actually the second round of midterm elections during the Bush presidency. Essentially, this lawsuit isn't just going to be fighting a large state, but will in essence be fighting a very large group of people that probably represent more money and power in terms of the productivity of their labor contributions and, as Hispanics in general (since many legal Hispanic residents side with their undocumented brethren), their political weight as probably the fastest growing "minority" group in the country. The overall power that Democrats wield in this nation is still historically low, yet the party has recently seen some unexpected success in states like Alabama and is seeing significantly increased voter participation and fundraising right now in the large and often impenetrably conservative state of Texas. Even more of a threat to the GOP could be the number of Republicans retiring or refusing to run again dwarfing that of Democrats - a number that could go even higher before the Midterms in November if Trump has his way with the tariffs and the result is a trade war on top of continued losses in the market. That could mean that some of the blue collar jobs and increased bonuses in manufacturing and so forth that we've allegedly gained recently, particularly since passage of the GOP's tax bill, could be lost again. That's something that I don't think Trump or the party can easily withstand given that Trump won with fewer votes that Romney had when he lost in 2012 and did so in large part, I think, due to the absence of Bernie Sanders, whose supporters in the Midwest and Rust Belt were left with only Trump in terms of a candidate that seemed to care about their kind of American jobs.

More directly tied to the lawsuit and the issue of immigration, though, is the fact that the Democrat Party - which is already seeing small gains - relies largely on the support of minority voters, and of the various minority groups in America, Hispanics have arguably had the best relationship with the Republican Party given the support they got from the Bush family in Texas and the Cuban immigrants in Miami that have been opposed to any warming of America's relationship with the regime of the late Fidel Castro and his brother. However significant or insignificant it was to begin with, the GOP's relationship with Hispanic voters is one they will likely need in this year's and future elections, yet has already been damaged by Trump's and other's rhetoric on this issue. Given the number of other states that have been doing roughly the same things as California, this lawsuit could be the very thing the Democrat Party needs to rally its comeback in a big way, arguing that besides the moral implications, it could be construed as an attack on states' rights by the party that has championed them the most and a hypocritical one given Republicans' JUSTIFIED opposition to President Obama when his Justice Department decided to take action against Governor Brewer of Arizona and her treatment of Hispanic illegal and undocumented immigrants.

When Trump was first elected, about the closest thing he got to a compliment from most of the mainstream press was that he seemed to be the least ideological president in American history. Given that his election was largely about rejecting the status quo in terms of the way the federal government has been run by more experienced and "mainstream" politicians up to now, that perceived LACK of ideological attachment is something that Trump, who fancies himself a deal-maker able to bring both sides to the table, should be going to great lengths to continually validate and expand upon. This lawsuit being brought by Attorney General Sessions, who many in the Republican Party seem to feel should have been replaced months ago when he first recused himself from the Russia investigation, is about as partisan and IDEOLOGICAL as anything the administration could do. Like what many Republicans think the Mueller investigation to be, it has the potential to be yet another long, drawn-out, and even more costly attempt to solve what is, in terms of confirmed detrimental effects, a problem of exaggerated proportions, at best.