Sanctuary Policies Claim Another Promising Youth

Sanctuary Policies Claim Another Promising Youth


Last summer, three Newark, New Jersey students were gunned down in cold blood by a gang member who had been released from police custody, even though he was charged with another serious felony and was in the country illegally. Sanctuary policies in Newark and in Essex County barred authorities from inquiring about the murderer’s immigration status and allowed him to have the opportunity to snuff out three promising young lives.

This outrageous example sadly, has been lost on the political leaders of Los Angeles — a declared sanctuary city with a policy, known as Special Order 40, that prevents police from inquiring about immigration status. On March 2, another teen, 17-year-old Jamiel Shaw Jr., paid for that policy with his life.

Jamiel, a high school football star in Los Angeles, was brutally murdered near his home. The suspect in his killing is Pedro Espinosa, an identified gang member who a day earlier had been released from police custody despite facing charges of assault with a deadly weapon. One other important fact about Espinosa: he is an illegal alien who could have been remanded to federal custody had the Los Angeles Police Department been allowed to inquire about immigration status.

In early April, Jamiel’s family and members of his community came before the Los Angeles City Council, imploring them to protect law-abiding citizens and residents by repealing Special Order 40. Especially poignant was the testimony of Jamiel’s mother, Anita Shaw, an Army sergeant who was serving in Iraq at the time of her son’s murder. “I was sacrificing my life for a better United States, and it’s not safe for my son,” she told the council.

The Council’s response to the Shaw family’s pleas was that this is simply not the time to consider this matter. Councilman Bill Rosendahl rose to opine that what is really needed is a forum to better explain to the public why Special Order 40 was initially implemented 30 years ago. Councilman Richard Alarcon implied that the real outrage about Jamiel’s murder is that it is being used to promote the repeal of Special Order 40.

While the Los Angeles City Council failed to find the murder of an innocent teenager an appropriate reason to reconsider city policies that protect illegal alien criminals, the council and mayor did manage to find time to voice their opposition to federal efforts to deal with illegal immigration. Shortly after Jamiel’s murder, the council held a hearing and approved a resolution by an 11-1 vote opposing the federal SAVE Act, which would step up enforcement against employers who hire illegal aliens.

On March 28, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa penned a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, urging him to end raids by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency on companies employing illegal aliens in Los Angeles. In his letter, Mayor Villaraigosa expressed deep concern about the inconvenience of these raids to employers in Los Angeles and the uncertainty they have created for illegal aliens and their families.

Mayor Villaraigosa has not yet weighed in on the city’s obligation to help remove illegal alien criminals, like Espinosa, from its streets and as yet there has been no similar letter urging the federal government to do its job to protect the lives of innocent Americans like Jamiel Shaw.