President Donald Trump consistently sparks some rather strong emotions among his supporters, but that doesn’t mean these desperate outbursts always land in exactly the way that the president’s camp might hope. At a Tucson city council meeting this week, a pair of pro-Trump demonstrators showed up to shout against the city’s effort to make itself a “sanctuary city,” which means local law enforcement would be prohibited from being made an arm of federal immigration authorities. After seemingly less than a minute of one of the demonstrators shouting, they were escorted from the premises as someone sitting by where they were broke into a very visible laugh. So much for making a splash — all they did was publicly humiliate themselves.
In video of the moment, one of the demonstrators can be heard shouting:
‘This city does not change or defy immigration laws! That is Congress’s job to change immigration laws. [inaudible] Respect our laws! Respect our laws!’
Besides the guy in a green shirt who cracks up over the passionate but strangely shallow demonstration, others can be heard demanding that the shouting pro-Trump demonstrator “Shut upppp.” One of them chimes in, after the angry Trump supporter claims that the mayor is in “direct violation” of her oath of office she took to uphold the laws and so on:
‘You’re in direct violation of being a jackass!’
Check it out:
Scene inside a Tucson City Council Meeting. Officials voted to put a “Sanctuary City” measure on the November ballot pic.twitter.com/mEh4PNj0Wo
— Nick VinZant (@NickVinZant) August 7, 2019
No doubt entirely unsurprisingly, the shouting woman and her mostly silent companion did not seem poised to enact any sort of substantive impact whatsoever. The meeting had been called to formally put a citizen-sponsored ballot initiative on the November ballot that would create “sanctuary city” status if passed, and the demonstrator didn’t even start shouting until after the vote had been taken and a time for public comment had passed. It’s like she almost forgot that she came there to raise a ruckus and decided to get in one last good shout before she left.
During that public comment period, one resident in support of the sanctuary city resolution asserted that it’s “necessary,” explaining in reference to the city’s already in-place designation of “immigrant friendly”:
‘We are living in turbulent times, the national rhetoric is increasingly violent, racist, xenophobic and anti-immigrant. Being an immigrant-friendly city is no longer good enough.’
Trump has repeatedly spoken out against “sanctuary” jurisdictions, painting them as safe harbors for criminals, but that’s a blatantly false characterization. No normal law enforcement functions are drawn back in the case of the status getting implemented. Instead, local leaders simply assert that their local law enforcement efforts won’t get intertwined with federal immigration authorities, which has the net effect of ensuring a cleaner system — but that doesn’t fit in with conservative antagonism of immigrants.
The Trump administration has repeatedly lost challenges they’ve brought in federal courts over “sanctuary” laws, including one recent claim they brought against the entire state of California. Local Republican leaders are already preparing a legal challenge to this Tucson proposal. In the meantime, Trump has also groused about possibly shipping undocumented immigrants to sanctuary cities as some kind of punitive step — but that hasn’t happened, yet at least.
Featured Image via screenshot
