Another day, another racist. U.S. President Donald Trump may have emboldened some racists to come out of their shells, but this is 2018 and we have the internet. In other words, the whole world could see any given racist emergence.
A white woman in northern California was just recently caught on tape threatening some Hispanic people who had parked on the street outside her house. Although she’s a clinical psychologist, in the course of her ranting, she claimed to be an immigration attorney, adding that if she called the police, authorities would “take them away.” Her implication seems to be, of course, that the people to whom she was speaking definitely didn’t belong in the country and so would be taken into custody.
Watch below.
Ironically, the white woman — Lesleigh Franklin — lives, as mentioned, in California, where there are laws specifically forbidding local cops cooperating with federal immigration authorities. Although Trump and his allies routinely attack such jurisdictions as providing a safe haven to immigrant criminals, they’re simply aiming to maintain the integrity of respective strains of law enforcement.
Local police officers don’t all of a sudden stop pursuing criminals. They just do their job under such legislation without the added consideration of the immigration status of people they’re either helping or pursuing.
The Trump administration filed a lawsuit challenging the California state laws establishing the state as a “sanctuary jurisdiction,” but the vast majority of that lawsuit got thrown out by a federal judge last month. At the time, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra hailed U.S. District Judge John Mendez’s decision as “a victory for our state’s ability to safeguard the privacy, safety, and constitutional rights of all our people.”
State Senator Kevin de León, who introduced the original sanctuary state legislation, added that Mendez’s decision was a “stunning defeat in the president’s racist war on immigrants.”
The Trump administration has been shot down in other attempts to intertwine federal immigration authorities with local police forces, too. One of Trump’s earliest moves was an executive order directing federal funds to be withheld from sanctuary jurisdictions. Just this month, though, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals shot that order down as unconstitutional.
Chief Judge Sidney Thomas explained:
‘Absent Congressional authorization, the administration may not redistribute or withhold properly appropriated funds in order to effectuate its own policy goals.’
In other words — sorry racist California lady, local police won’t back you up in your racist ranting.
Franklin is reported to have resigned from her role as CEO of a mental health clinic, and she’s also said to be sorry for her behavior. Apologies don’t erase the very real threatening behavior that she confronted those people outside her house with, though.
There have been issues with Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents properly identifying themselves in the past, so although she didn’t claim to personally be such an agent, Franklin was playing into a broader issue in making her rambling assertions.
Imagine your life being so constricted that you’re threatened by Hispanic people simply parking on the street outside.
Featured Image via Screenshot from the Video
