Editorial by Summer Lane |
In California, Fresno Mayor Jerry Dyer – formerly the city’s chief of police – has declared that the Fresno police force will not assist with President Donald Trump’s nationwide deportation operation, despite the fact that illegal-related crime has become a daunting scourge.
As the new administration’s Border Czar Tom Homan and Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem have begun the expedited removal of violent illegal aliens such as Tren de Arugua gang members, child rapists, and murderers, state and local leaders are beginning to show where their true allegiances lie.
In a statement made to the Fresno Bee last week, Dyer explained his position:
“When it comes to immigration enforcement in sensitive places like schools or churches, I firmly believe those places should remain safe havens for our community. We do not want members of our immigrant communities, especially our children, being afraid to attend school or a place of worship.”
He also said that his “primary responsibility is to ensure the safety of everyone, regardless of their immigration status.”
It is worth noting that in 2016, as acting chief of police, Dyer was not interested in enforcing immigration laws, either. The Bee even noted in their article that he was only interested in those who “are involved in criminal activity.”
Ironically, aliens, by definition, are involved in criminal activity simply by violating immigration laws and living in the country illegally.
This is a lawful fact reiterated by White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, who sparred with the media in the past week about the definition of an illegal migrant.
“If you enter illegally, you are, by definition, an illegal,” she stated.
More than 600,000 illegal aliens in the U.S. who came across the border under the Biden administration have criminal histories. The crimes associated with these aliens are heinous – sexual assault, human trafficking, drug trafficking, and so forth.
It is also integral to note that these are just the criminals publicly reported by ICE. There are likely many more. President Donald Trump has often stated that as many as 21 million illegals have entered America over the past four years. This is a staggering postulation, but it makes sense.
From previous WRN reporting:
With millions of entrants flooding into the United States without being detected or detained at any point, there are likely hundreds of thousands more – and this is reflected as we see more horrible stories pop up across the country in the murders of innocent girls like 22-year-old Laken Riley (who was murdered in Georgia by an illegal migrant here from Venezuela) or Jocelyn Nungaray (a 12 year old girl lured from her home and brutally raped and murdered by illegal Venezuelan migrants).
In California there are millions of illegal migrants. In 2022, the Pew Research Center estimated that there were around 1.8 million in the state, but that number seems woefully inaccurate as millions more have poured through the open southern border since the 2022 data was collected.
Perhaps it comes as no surprise that violent crime has increased in California since 2022, according to the state attorney general’s own statistics. Even more prevalent is the presence of fentanyl and drug trafficking in California, which is killing a staggering number of young people.
In previous reporting for The Epoch Times, I dove deep into the chilling realities of fentanyl – particularly in the California Central Valley – and learned from San Joaquin Assistant District Attorney Cindy De Silva about how these drugs are being brought over the open border by the cartels, with precursor chemicals manufactured in China.
I also spoke to parents whose children lost their lives to fentanyl poisoning due to these deadly drugs being brought across the open border. And yes, this is happening at alarming rates in California, and the illegal immigration crisis is facilitating much of it.
Case in point: President Trump has pinpointed the flow of drugs from countries like Mexico and Canada and is therefore poised to slap a 25 percent tariff on each country on February 1 until they do something from their side to stem the flow of illicit drugs and entrants. He will also implement a 10 percent tariff on China for their part in the fentanyl crisis.
Trump said on Thursday that the tariffs were a response to the offending countries who are allowing “mass numbers of people to come in and fentanyl to come in.”
In California – a sanctuary state for illegals – drug overdose is the number one cause of death among 25-54-year-olds (data from 2022). Fentanyl is often laced into party drugs or even weed. Any accidental user can be killed by just 2 mg of the toxic drug – a dose small enough to sit on the tip of a sharpened pencil.
But apparently, this horrific danger and scourge is not enough to rouse Jerry Dyer to take action and cooperate with federal deportation efforts to remove such violent and deadly criminals engaged in this type of drug trafficking.
Instead, Dyer expressed to The Bee that he is concerned about breaking trust with the “immigrant community” and wants to ensure that they “feel comfortable reaching out to law enforcement when they need help or to provide information to officers.”
He went on to strongly position himself against the federal deportation efforts.
“If federal mandates require local law enforcement to participate in immigration enforcement, I want to be very clear: Fresno will not sacrifice the trust we’ve worked so hard to build with our community,” he postured.
Jerry Dyer has also apparently forgotten that under the Biden administration’s disastrous immigration policies, over 300,000 migrant children are completely missing – because that is what illegal immigration does. It facilitates crime and sex trafficking.
Last year, Trump noted that illegal immigration under the Biden regime had facilitated the “largest wave of sex trafficking and human trafficking in history.”
Still, this doesn’t seem enough to inspire Dyer to cooperate with federal deportation efforts.
Border Czar Tom Homan has been resolute that this administration’s deportation operation will continue, regardless of politically correct propagandists who will wax poetic about “women and children” being terrorized by immigration enforcement – but completely ignore the women and children being raped, trafficked, and murdered by illegal alien gang members and repeat offenders.
“They’ll tell one side of the story, and they’ll try and villify us, but it’s not going to stop us from doing our job,” he said recently. “I don’t care what the media says about me. If they saw what I saw in 34 years, all the tragedies I’ve dealt with…I’m tired of the women being raped during that journey, I’m tired of dead children, I’m tired of women and children being sex trafficked.”
He pointed to a 600 percent increase in sex trafficking due to the illegal immigration crisis under Biden, a 3500 percent increase of arrests of people on the terrorist watchlist, and record profits for criminal cartels.
Make no mistake – California is acutely affected by these national statistics, thanks to horrendous sanctuary state policies that have given illegals special privileges and protections, including access to free public healthcare and education. With incentives like that, illegals feel emboldened to not only live openly in violation of America’s sovereign immigration laws, but to reap the benefits of the American taxpayer system.
That being said, Homan has spoken before about the illegality of harboring illegal migrants (a federal offense; see Title 8 USC 13.24 iii) . In remarks in December 2024 regarding Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson’s posturing to block deportation efforts, Homan advised one of two options: “He can step aside but if impedes us, if he knowingly harbors or conceals an illegal alien, I will prosecute him.”
Unsurprisingly, ICE raids kicked off in Chicago almost immediately after Trump took office, so it looks like Johnson was forced to back off his tough guy talk.
Last year, Homan put it this way: “What mayor or governor doesn’t want public safety threats out of their communities? That’s their number one responsibility – is to protect their communities. That’s exactly what WE are going to do.”
Homan is absolutely correct. What kind of mayor or leader wouldn’t want to help an operation that would remove criminals from their communities? What benefit is there in that?
Trump’s Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Stephen Miller said this week that leftist locals who attempt to block or stymie the federal operation to remove illegals will face stiff consequences.
“The law is clear that harboring an illegal alien, smuggling an illegal alien, obstructing law enforcement, obstructing an official proceeding and a conspiracy to violate the rights of Americans, all of these and many more are criminal statutes,” he stated during comments on Jesse Watters Primetime.
He added, “So if there [are] incidences that occur where a public official or an elected individual engages in violations of those criminal statutes, then I fully expect the Department of Justice will follow the letter of the law.”
If Dyer plays with fire here, he could end up facing the wrath of a mission-focused Trump administration and a no-holds-barred Tom Homan, who has made it perfectly clear that if an elected local leader is not here to assist in the deportation operation, “get the hell out of the way.”
Dyer will likely sit back and do nothing while federal law enforcement sweeps the Central Valley and avoid tangling too deeply with the feds, but he will never escape the legacy of gutlessness that he will leave behind.
Let’s hope he changes his mind and does what’s right for the community.
Photo: Adobe Stock
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