A San Diego City's Lawsuit Against California

The city of El Cajon has filed a lawsuit against California over the state's sanctuary laws. Veronica Carter and Bret Burkhart learned more about the suit from the mayor of El Cajon, Bill Wells.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The city of Alcoholma is suing the state of California
over its sanctuary law, and.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
To talk more about it, we're joined on the Coco
News Lifeline by Alcoholon's mayor Bill Wells. Good morning, Mayor,
thanks for Johnny's again on San Diego's Morning News.

Speaker 3 (00:13):
Yeah, good morning, thanks for having me.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
All right, let's talk a little bit about this. Why
the city is filing this lawsuit.

Speaker 3 (00:19):
Well, our police officers are put in a really strange situation.
Federal law is very clear that any group that helps
her a beds people that are in the country illegally
are violating federal law. That's pretty clear. At the same time,
California has passed SB fifty four, which says that if
you help the federal government in any way in regard

(00:42):
to immigration, you're violating state law. So right now, our
police officers, and frankly, every police officer in the state
of California is every single day violating either state or
federal law. And what we're asking is for a judge
to make a ruling on that and saying whose law
is bring in this case? And to me, it's pretty clear.
The Constitution says it's federal law, but I guess that's

(01:06):
for a court to decide.

Speaker 1 (01:07):
We're speaking with alcohol may Or Bill Wells. You know,
the city of Huntington Beach last year sued the state.
It was a similar lawsuit, but they did this in
federal court last year and that complaint was dismissed even
though it was federal court. So are you concerned about
the same outcome for alcoholan And wouldn't that be kind
of a waste of taxpayer money paying lawyers to try
and take this to the top of the Attorney General's

(01:29):
office in California.

Speaker 3 (01:31):
The two issues One is we're not paying for any
of this America First policy as who is paying for
every dime of this, So no taxpayer money is being involved.
Number Two, Huntings of Beach made a mistake by filing
in federal court. The federal court generally says if it's
between a city and the state at the state court issue,
so they just bumped it back to them, and my

(01:51):
understanding is they're getting actually ready to reapply to state court.
A lot of people will bring up the fact that
the federal government sued the state of California over SB
fifty four or several years ago, and that was overturned
by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. But the problem
with that was the way again the federal government went

(02:13):
after it. They went after it based upon financial issues,
saying basically, if we're giving you federal money, you have
to do what we say. And the Ninth Certain Court
Appeal said, no, that's not the case. But that was
the issue. It had nothing to do with whether our
sanctuary policies were legal or the state law somehow Trump's

(02:34):
federal law. So we're getting right to the heart of
the matter here, and we think this is a very
clean lawsuit that we'll actually go to the Supreme Court.

Speaker 2 (02:42):
We're talking to Ilkahom's mayor Bill Wells. Now, this is
not the first time that you've clashed with California Attorney
General Rob Bonta. As a matter of fact, he sued
al Cahome for sharing license plate data with the Feds
last year. How would you describe your relationship with the office.
I mean, it seems to be a lot of back
in for it.

Speaker 3 (03:01):
Well, I mean, frankly, we don't have a relationship that
I've never spoken with mister Bonnta. He seems to focus
on me a lot. But yeah, really This is just
basically the same argument that the entire country is having.
You know, whether or not California gets to invoke this
new form of political ideology and just basically do whatever

(03:24):
it wants like it's his own country and me and
frankly half over half of the country disagrees with that.
It feels like the federal government has a right to
protect his borders and has a right to follow the
federal law. So this is a class of ideologies. Obviously,
mister Bonta comes from a very far left leaning ideology,

(03:47):
and I come from a pretty right right center of ideology,
and so this is a microcosm I think of the
class that the entire country is having.

Speaker 1 (03:54):
Yeah, well, well you shall see how it falls in
court now that you're taking it a state court instead
of the federal court. Mayor, thank you so much for
joining us on San Diego's Morning News.

Speaker 3 (04:04):
Yeah, my pleasure anytime.

Speaker 1 (04:05):
All right, Alcohol, Mayor Bill Wells is the city of
Alcoholone sues the state of California over its sanctuary laws.